Marked for Destruction
by BrickmasterGuy
Summary: Zim isn't truly an invader— he knows that now. While he's working through it, life returns to normal elsewhere. Even Dib seems to be back to before. But everything is in danger again when Zim's infamous mistakes catch up with him for the last time. From there, things stop being normal. "Irken Zim's I.D. PAK is damaged and has led to a corrupt data path. He is a defective."
1. Apathetic

It had been a little over two weeks since the Florpus incident, and yet already things had nearly returned to normal. Everybody was back home and life had essentially resumed as if nothing had happened in the first place. The school had been on a sudden break as everybody continued to recover from the mass destruction that had taken place on Earth. Today was the first day of school being back in session since then. Zim, however, elected not to return to school yet.

By now, it had set in that Zim truly was on Earth for no real reason. Indeed, the Tallest weren't coming to conquer Earth regardless of what Zim did, and he had completely and utterly lost any sort of respect with the Tallest, and he wasn't deemed useful in any way. Even his desperate vie for power, his last-ditch effort to conquer Earth, had failed. So, Zim had spent most of the time since that failed plan in the same sad state Dib had found him in when he first learned this information. Simply put, he wasn't in the mood to deal with the human school right now.

"Wasn't the whole objective of being a student at the school to blend in with the humans?" the base's computer asked, the voice booming out from the ceiling above the couch, where Zim had draped himself.

"Yeah. But not today," Zim muttered, letting his right hand slip off of his chest onto the floor.

"What do you mean 'not today'?"

"Don't question me. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. And be quiet— you'll wake up GIR." GIR was sleeping in the corner, curled up like a cat. He was on top of his dog disguise, using it as some sort of bed.

"...Whatever. It's not my problem." Nearly the moment the computer finished, there was a knock at the door to Zim's base. "It's Dib."

"Ugghhh." Zim sat up with a prolonged groan and stretched. "Can't Dib tell that I'm busy?" Zim stood up and dragged his feet to the door, kicking empty cans aside as he did. Zim opened the door wordlessly.

"Zim," Dib stated disparagingly.

"Yes. Dib," Zim grumbled.

"You know that it's the first day back in school since you nearly _killed _us all?"

"Yes. Why are you here, then?"

"Cause…" Dib realized he should've been hurrying off to school. He was probably going to be late. Dib hoped it wouldn't be like the last time someone was late. He shuddered. "Shut up, alien! That's not important. What is important is that you don't seem like you're going." Dib signalled to Zim's antennae and non-human eyes with his hand. "You know, if you stop going to school, people might get suspicious. They might start to notice that you're weird. That you're not _human._"

"...Yes."

"...What?" Dib was confused.

"Eh, Zim has better things to do this Earth day than go back to human school, fool Dib."

Dib leaned to the side and looked past Zim, into his base. It looked exactly how one would expect a living room to look like if someone lived there for two weeks straight without leaving. He took note of a plate on the floor, which had a nearly-mutilated pizza slice which had been caked in glitter. That probably was Zim's robot's doing. Dib stood straight again. "Yeah. Wouldn't want to take time away from… that. Or from your _alien schemes!_" Dib accused, pointing at Zim, his finger less than an inch away from Zim's apathetic-looking face.

"Zim is done with such schemes."

"You tried to pull this trick before, Zim! I won't fall for it this time! I'll make sure that you never take over the world and that everyone sees you for who you really are!" Zim winced and his antennae flattened against his head as Dib practically yelled into his face.

"Yes. Now leave."

"I'll never— well I do have to get to school. I might be late by—" Zim shut the door on Dib and shuffled back to the couch, which he collapsed onto, face-first.

Zim truly felt like he was past the "alien schemes", as Dib lovingly put it. Even now he couldn't achieve anything on behalf of the Tallest. He was in exile and that was just that. Now he was exiled as he the Tallest had wanted him to be, and there was no reason to conquer; not that he could ever succeed in doing that. For now, it was this— just about the purest form of apathy Zim could muster.

Dib did make to school. He pushed the fresh memory of what just happened to him out of his mind. He could never think about it again. Never. Dib was to be on time in the future, lest… And in less drastic news, school was surprisingly boring. Well, Dib was always bored from the school's just mind-numbingly simple lessons, but today was different. He was usually distracted at least somewhat from the terrible monotony of school by the evil of Zim. But, of course, with Zim staying home, that didn't happen. But Dib could ignore that; that wasn't the real issue at hand. No, the issue was that now, while Dib was helplessly at school, Zim was at his base, probably creating countless plans to take over the world, and Dib couldn't do a thing about it! He was a sitting duck as Zim's incalculable menace worked its magic. When he returned home he would have to work even harder to counter Zim and all that he had accomplished during Dib's tactical faux pas.

When school let out, Dib rushed home, eager to get to work saving the Earth. Upon making it inside, he could hear his dad working on something. Sounded like welding. As he pushed farther into the house, he spotted him, welding a stop sign onto a robot's back. Huh.

"Hello, son. How was schooling?" Dr. Membrane asked, his voice muffled by his welding mask. He didn't look up from his work. The robot blinked.

"Fine. I—" Dib thought about earlier in the day. He had been late. He shut his eyes and shivered. "It was good." Dib looked around for a moment. "Where's Clembrane?"

"Oh, son," Dr. Membrane began, putting down his welder and pushing up his mask. He got on one knee and put his hand on Dib's shoulder, "he's living on a farm up north, frolicking and playing with all of the other Clembranes."

"...What? Dad, that doesn't make any sense. There aren't any other Clembranes." Dib paused, "...Right?"

"Oh, yes. You're right." Dr. Membrane laughed heartily, "I dumped him on the side of the road in the outskirts of town."

"That's… is he okay?"

"Maybe." He continued to laugh.

"Do you know where he went? I didn't really like Clembrane either, but… he's still alive, right? You can't just leave him for dead."

"Oh, he's still alive, son. Probably. Now hurry along— I've got work to do."

"Yeah, I'm gonna go up to my room, Dad." Dib began to walk away, concerned.

"Have fun."

Dib had made his way upstairs and walked down the hall to his room. He opened the door and slipped into his bedroom. Dib had work to do. He jumped into the chair at his desk and got busy. The plan was to install cameras and spying devices into Zim's base. As many as he possible. Then he could stop all of Zim's plans before they began. And he could get video evidence of his extraterrestrial-ness. He'd perfected his strategy since the last time he tried this, so it was bound to work. And, Dib made it his goal to have planted at least one in Zim's base by the end of the night.

Zim really only had two reasons for continuing to act the way he was. Either he was desperately trying to trick Dib, or he was… trying to trick Dib. There was absolutely no way that this was genuine. Dib thought that last time, and one just needed to look around at the rubble outside to see how wrong Dib was. Dib wouldn't be wrong this time. Dib, despite his innumerable failures and utter lack of tangible success, would finally catch Zim.

Zim hadn't moved an inch since he collapsed back onto the couch that morning. He was still facedown on the couch. GIR had been making even more of a mess, surely. Right now he was out doing something in the world. Probably eating or partying, knowing GIR. The television had been on the whole time, but Zim hadn't been listening into a single thing. Zim may have processed that he was exiled, but that didn't mean that he had completely accepted it. In fact, he hadn't accepted it nearly at all.

Out of the blue, the computer stated, "Master, there's an incoming transmission."

Zim said something in response, but it was muffled by the couch.

"What?"

"I don't care," Zim answered, louder now.

"It's from the Tallest."

Zim sat up, pushing himself upright, the couch creaking as he did. Now sitting, he brushed himself down and mused aloud, "Is it?"

"Yes. Would you like me to put them on?"

Zim mulled over it for a second. He had a slight smirk for a moment before his countenance returned to somewhere between depressed and bored. "No. Tell the Tallest to leave a message."

"But I thought that you wanted to—"

"If it's important then the Tallest will leave a message." Zim slid back down, now supine.

"I'm not sure if that's something this system can do…" the computer mumbled as it presumably followed Zim's request.

Zim, through failing to answer the Tallest, perhaps presented some sort of resistance, or won some sort of small battle. Regardless, he wouldn't be talking to the Tallest today. They'd have to wait for him. For Zim.


	2. That Evening

Dib stood up with a start as he put the final touch on his work. In his hand he held a camera that he'd Frankenstein's monster-ed together from other devices. It was durable, camouflaged, and could siphon power off of Zim's base. This was a fine piece of work, and with it and a few more further down the line, he could bust Zim once and for all. Now, to complete his goal for today, before it got too dark.

He stood in front of Zim's base, the camera hidden under his coat. He tried to open the door to Zim's base, hoping that he wasn't inside. Well, and that the door was unlocked. Even if just his robot was home, he could easily plant the camera. But, no such luck— the door was locked, which Dib should have expected. As he tried to peek into the building through the window to his right, the door opened, with Zim standing in the doorway. Light poured out from the doorway, lighting up Zim's lawn, darkened by twilight.

Dib awkwardly made sure his camera was hidden and slowly shuffled over to the path that headed up to Zim's front door. "Zim," he muttered as he moved.

"What is it, Dib?" Zim asked, nearly mumbling.

"I, uh, was going to…"

"What do you want?"

"It's just that, well, Zim, you know…" Dib leaned over Zim's shoulder to look into his base. He could see a small pile of what looked like socks. Why either Zim or his robot needed socks was beyond him, but it served as a good place for him to—

"Are you trying to distract me from something?"

"No, of course not. I would— look!" Dib snapped his arm to his left, violently pointing into the distance.

Zim continued to stare at Dib without even taking a glance to what Dib was pointing at. "You're trying to distract me."

"No. No! Zim, we'd never try to trick each other like that."

"...No, I don't think that that's right. But if I let you distract me, will you go away?"

"...Yes."

"Okay." Zim, joylessly, stared over to where Dib has pointed to earlier. "Ah, Zim is helplessly distracted by that building," Zim spoke in a monotone voice.

Dib took his chance and tossed the camera past Zim, into the house, onto the pile of socks. It landed perfectly fine, pointing towards the kitchen. Dib smiled— that was exactly how he wanted that to happen. Maybe Zim wouldn't even notice the camera for a while.

Zim turned back to face Dib. "Is that enough of the distracting?"

"Yeah, thanks. And have fun _scheming _tonight, Zim." Dib started to leave.

"Uh huh, Dib. Don't bother me again." Zim warned, raising his voice slightly before closing the door. He turned around, standing there for a moment. The TV continued to flash images into Zim's living room. He caught himself as his mind wandered to the Tallest and his mission, and he stopped himself. He needed to be on the couch for that. Zim shambled over to the couch and flopped onto it.

His view on all of it hadn't really changed at all over the past however many days, yet the same thoughts continued to come back to him. Really, Zim should have seen this coming from the Tallest. His arrogance had gotten in the way of him realizing the true weight of his mistakes. Zim had made enough to be exiled by the time Impending Doom I even came along. Everything he'd done to the tallest, the current ones and the previous, as well as all of the setbacks he'd forced upon the Irken Empire… Zim couldn't really understand how he hadn't seen it sooner.

Now, when Zim reflected on all of it, it was so obvious. All of the times the Tallest struggled to contain their laughter during Zim's calls, their insistence on giving Zim "secret plans" that were nothing more than unloading things onto him. Now it was more obvious to him than gravity or Irken superiority was. Yet, at the time, it couldn't have been further from that. Because of that, because of all of his mistakes, because he couldn't even take over some stupid rock lightyears from his own homeland, because some kid with a big head and dumb glasses could see through every trick and disguise he ever tried… maybe he was defective after all. Maybe the Irkens would have been better off without Zim. Certainly, if they could take a look at him now, they would agree; Zim was just moping on a dirty couch on some planet too far to even be mapped. Irkens wouldn't be so bothered, they would try to find some sort of way to redeem themselves. But at the same time, that's exactly what led Zim to fail so many times.

Zim sat back up, feeling almost physically weighed down by his thoughts. He sluggishly stood up— he was going to tinker with something to take his mind off of all of this. That was progress. He'd just been lying around— this was an improvement.

"Hey, where ya goin'?" GIR asked, holding a lump of… something green. Zim wasn't exactly sure of what it was.

"Downstairs. Don't bother me," Zim urged.

"But… what if—"

"Don't bother me, regardless of what you want. I'll be back up later. You can… not bother me then, either."

"Oh. Okay. Bye!" GIR tossed the green lump into the air, where it landed on the floor next to him with a splat.

With that, Zim took himself down into the depths of his base, where he'd get to work on something somewhat trivial and take his mind off of the terribly draining concerns that kept assaulting him.

Zim was putting together a small device, one that could maybe satiate GIR when the need arose. After only having worked on it for a few Earthen minutes, the computer spoke up.

"You should watch the message the Tallest left for you earlier," the computer stated simply.

"Oh. I almost forgot that the Tallest called." Zim admitted before thinking for a moment. "Sure, put 'em up." Wordlessly, the computer obliged, and within only a few seconds, a video came to life on a large monitor on the wall to Zim's left.

Zim immediately noticed the Tallest, standing side by side in the main chamber of the Massive, as they did in every transmission between them and Zim. Tallest Red began. "So, Zim. That was _really cool_ what you just did."

"It wasn't! It was absolutely not cool!" Tallest Purple shouted.

"Yes. It wasn't. I was using sarcasm. I was being sarcastic."

"It was really not cool, Zim!"

"We just finished escaping that whole 'Florpus' thing of yours, and let me just say: personally, I'm done with you."

"Personally, I agree! I'm done with you, too!"

"Everything else wasn't enough? Ev— oh, and that whole 'having your AI tell us to leave a message' thing? What's wrong with you?" Red yelled.

"Yeah! We're the _Tallest._ You don't tell the Tallest to leave a message! You should be lucky that we're even _leaving_ a message at all!"

"Really, you don't deserve it. A message, I mean. You totally deserve what we're planning on doing now."

"Oh yeah, you really deserve this. You… Red, you said it better earlier, you tell him."

Red sighed. "Zim, as—"

"Pause it," Zim loudly demanded.

As was ordered, the computer paused the video, which froze as Red began to scream again. "What is it?" the computer asked.

"I don't want to watch any more of this right now."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm not watching the rest of this now. It's put me in a bad mood. Again."

"I'm not sure the Tallest exactly want to put you in a good mood. Besides, what they're talking about seems really important, especially to you. I think that you—"

"Stop. I'm not watching it. They can wait on Zim some more."

"But it's really very—"

"Later. Now leave me alone again, I'm going to keep working on this… thing." Zim held up what he'd been working on. It was about as large as a deck of cards. He put it back down and went back to work.

The computer seemed to sigh. "Fine. Don't blame me later when this becomes a problem."

Zim continued to work. Then, "Wait, why are you sighing now?"

When Zim got no answer after a few quiet seconds, he leaned his head back down and began to weld something into place with a laser. Zim would get out of this rut, and then he'd… well, he still had to figure that part out, didn't he? If his mission was all a ruse, then he still had to figure out what to do with himself. Until then, he put his thoughts to the side and distracted himself with work.


	3. Transmission

The night had come and gone and now it was time for human school. Zim would be attending today. As both his computer and Dib had noted yesterday, it would be a good idea to go to school if for no other reason than to keep from appearing suspicious. So, Zim prepared himself, gathering all that he needed. He also prepared himself emotionally: he would have to deal with all of the children and the teachers, and perhaps most draining, Dib. He tried to soothe himself in anticipation of this. Right before he left, having readied himself and the time for school fast approaching, he gave GIR the device he'd finished over the night. If it truly worked, he'd still be playing with it when Zim returned to his base. With that, he departed.

It wasn't long until things started to get annoying. Dib, of course, took the opportunity to accuse Zim of being an alien, given that he had missed school yesterday. "And even if you ignore that, don't you remember when he tried to _destroy Earth_ just two weeks ago? That's why we were out of school?" Zim protested to the entire class.

The class was silent, save for some mumbling. Then someone in the back shouted, "I liked being out of school!

"That's not the point!"

"What _is _the point?" someone else loudly asked.

"That Zim tried to kill us all! It wasn't even that long ago! The spaceship fleet? The terrifying space hole? Remember? That's w—"

"That's normal," someone in the front said to Dib.

"No! It's not!" Dib continued to try to explain his point to the unenthusiastic class some more before Ms. Bitters put a stop to yet another of Dib's rants. He sat down unhappily, continuing to eye Zim suspiciously, no different than any other school day. Zim refused to care, not even looking over to meet his glances.

Zim managed to tolerate school as the day continued to drag on. Dib wasn't bothering him all that much. Until lunch. Dib was still trying to spy on Zim and spent nearly the whole lunch period trying to plant a tiny camera onto Zim. Dib knew what if he could get his camera on Zim, he would have fantastic surveillance in Zim's base and of his schemes. Dib managed to plant it on his shoulder with the help of some tape. But, unfortunately for Dib, he managed to accidentally bump it off only a couple of minutes later. When lunch ended, Dib recovered the camera off of the floor. He'd try again as soon as he could. It'd be game-changer once he succeeded.

And now, the school day was over. It hadn't done much to distract Zim from his thoughts. If anything, they were actually compounded by the familiar environment which had been so integral to his mission. And now, was blending in really so important? Zim didn't know. He didn't really want to waste his time in the school if he didn't have to, but he'd have to know if he didn't need to blend in anymore before he stopped.

Zim opened the door to his base and walked in. Immediately he removed the fake eyes and hair and threw them aside. GIR was sat on the floor, playing with the device Zim had made last night. A small screen implanted into it flashed colors directly into GIR's face, and it seemed he couldn't be any happier. Zim smiled. At least there was one success.

Zim watched GIR play with the toy for a bit and elected to continue along with his normal routine— going to school, blending in, countering Dib, at least until he could come up with a definitive solution to his dilemma. Once he knew what he was to do with himself now that his mission had effectively ended, then he might change things up. Until then, he would keep going as normal. And on that note, he was going to clean up the mess that he and GIR had made in the base while Zim was debilitated by his emotions. It was rather disgusting, really. Surprising he had managed to deal with it for two weeks, even.

Zim threw all of the trash he came across into a large bag made of the humans' 'plastic'. He wore gloves, trying to avoid interacting with some of the garbage he came across. Like how GIR had left an egg sitting under the couch. Where he got it, Zim didn't know. What he did know is that it smelled truly awful. He couldn't really yell at GIR, though; he was thoroughly distracted.

Then Zim came across something in the pile of socks that GIR had collected. He reached in and picked up a camera. He looked it over, turning it in his hand. Zim had no idea where it had come from. There was no Irken identification or symbols on it, but it must have come from Zim. How else could this rather advanced-looking camera have made its way into Zim's base? He placed it on the bookshelf. He'd take a look at it later. The camera was pointing towards Zim as he placed it down, such that it could capture footage of the whole room, nearly.

A few minutes later, with much of the room having been cleaned up, and the bag nearly full, the computer spoke up. "You should watch the rest of the Tallest's transmission, now."

"Hm? Oh, yeah. That. Fine. But don't pester me about it again," Zim replied, pausing from his cleaning for a moment.

"Good. Now watch the whole thing this time." In roughly two seconds, the TV switched on to static, then to the same video from yesterday. Zim looked up as it unpaused from its position when Zim had last seen it.

"—you have caused nothing but problems for the Irken Empire, we have decided to put a stop to it now," Tallest Red resumed.

"You're the 'it' in that sentence, Zim," Tallest Purple chimed in.

"Yes, thank you, Purple. Every attempt we've made to keep you away from us has failed. Even when lightyears away, you still continue to cause destruction here. So, to keep you from doing any of this ever again…"

"We're gonna eliminate you, Zim."

Zim's eyes widened. That didn't sound especially good. Zim began, "Computer, pause the—"

"No! Just finish the transmission first," the computer argued.

Zim begrudgingly obliged, continuing to watch, growing increasingly anxious as the Tallest kept speaking.

"If that means we have to destroy that planet you're living on, then so be it. We just really want you dead," Red threatened.

"Be sure to submit yourself to us, then. We really will destroy anything we need to to get rid of you for good," Purple elaborated.

"We hate you that much."

"We do."

"Welp…" Red paused, "Best of luck."

"That was sarcasm again. Have no luck."

"Yeah. None. Anyway, hope to see the life drain from your eyes soon!" With that, the transmission ended and returned to static. Zim stared at the screen for a few silent seconds. Only the white noise of the static and the excited sounds of GIR filled the room.

Zim slowly brought himself to move, and let go of the bag, gradually standing up. His continued existence had been put into question now. "Why didn't you tell me that what they said was important?" Zim asked, slowly and deliberately.

"I did. I told you yesterday," the computer answered, sounding annoyed.

"I don't think you did."

"Most certainly did warn you about this yesterday."

"Well, we need to clear this whole situation up. The Tallest probably didn't mean that. Maybe it was some kind of joke? That sarcasm that they clearly love so much?"

"Master, there—"

"Call the Tallest. We can talk this out." Zim started taking his gloves off as he readied himself for a call.

"At best that won't accomplish anything. At worst—"

"Don't doubt me. Call them."

"...Of course." Zim stood in front of the screen as he waited for the Tallest to respond. It, surprisingly, wasn't long until they picked up, however. As soon as the Tallest saw Zim, they seemed to deflate.

"Hello, my Tallest," Zim said.

"Zim," Purple muttered.

"What do you want now?" Red asked, annoyed.

"Well, I watched your transmission. I have… concerns," Zim explained.

"Good," Red smirked.

"Well, uh, did you completely mean what you said? About wanting me dead?" Zim smiled awkwardly.

"Yes."

"Of course!" Purple answered at the same time as Red.

"Okay… but you didn't really mean it when you said you were going to come here and kill me, right?"

"Nope, we meant that as much as when we said we wanted you dead," Purple corrected.

"We're on our way to you now," Red stated.

Zim began, "But, my—"

"And don't try running away, either. Our ship's engines are better than your dinky cruiser's," Red warned.

"If you try, we'll still catch up. You'll just make us more annoyed," Purple continued.

"And we'll kill you more brutally."

"So don't try it."

"...My Tallest, you—" Zim tried as his anxiety had been compounded and intensified.

"I'm done talking to you now," Red stated simply.

"But you n—" Zim stopped as the transmission turned to static. Zim stood still, shuddering slightly, paralyzed by some combination of fear, shock, and anxiety. He stared at the static, unflinching at the loud white noise.

"Master. You ought to do something now," the computer advised.

"...Yes. Yes. Yes, standing here won't accomplish anything. I need to get to work. But how am I to stop both the Tallest and the Armada? I haven't been able to succeed in anything else."

"You've accidentally killed two Tallest."

"Don't remind me."

"Well, now you just need to _purposefully _kill two."

It took a moment for that to set in for Zim. Then, "Oh. That's right! It should be easy then!" Zim grinned. Then he paused and asked, "Why are you being so helpful? I thought that you didn't like doing that or something."

"If you die to the Tallest, then it's just me and GIR. For eternity."

GIR looked up at the mention of his name. "Ooo, that's me!"

Zim locked eyes with GIR for a couple of seconds, before GIR looked down and returned to his toy. "Hm, I understand." Zim reached down and grabbed the bag of garbage. "Regardless, I appreciate whatever help you can provide."

"Of course," the computer muttered.

"For now, we must work to prevent being destroyed by the Tallest! I will retreat underground and craft weapons brutal enough to defend from the entire Irken fleet! And you will help me, computer!" Zim shouted, getting increasingly louder.

"Of course. Now get working."

"Yes, we can't waste time." Zim quickly made his way underground to get to work, taking the bag of garbage with him. GIR stayed in the living room, still thoroughly distracted.

Dib removed his headphones and placed them on the desk in front of him. Really he didn't need them in the first place— he could barely hear a single thing anyone had said. He had seen Zim talking to his leader on the TV in his base, but he couldn't tell what had happened at all. Zim seemed distressed, easily. So… good? Dib was frustrated with his camera though, he knew that much. He would have to try to adjust the microphone's sensitivity, perhaps. If he could even get the camera back in the first place, that was. Well, and plant more cameras in Zim's base so nothing like this would happen again in the future. And as for what had just happened in Zim's base? Well, Dib would interrogate him about it tomorrow. Dib had to know the truth.


	4. Work

Zim busied himself for quite a while. He didn't stop to take a break at any point as he worked down in the depths of his base. Instead, he and his computer collaborated, creating weapons of their design, or of better, stolen ones, for hours. It wasn't until there was a knock at the front door upstairs that Zim paused.

"There's someone outside," the computer notified Zim.

"Hm? Who is it?" Zim asked, not looking up as he screwed a metal plate onto exposed machinery.

"It's Dib. He's trying to look in through the windows."

"Ugh. Is GIR still up there?"

"Yes. He's eating the gloves you left on the floor."

"Send him to the door. Make him tell Dib to go away."

Silence. "...He doesn't want to."

"I don't care what he wants! Tell him Dib has pizza or tacos or something."

Another pause. Zim continued to work. "He said he wants to eat the gloves right now. And Dib is pounding on the door now."

"Of course. Of course, he wants to eat gloves!" Zim threw down his tools. "Must I do everything myself?"

"Master, you—"

"No. Quiet. I'll rid ourselves of him. Watch the gamma levels. Don't let them peak more than two standard deviations." Zim began to ascend to the surface.

Once up there, he saw GIR hunched over the gloves, trying in vain to rip a bite out of them. Zim glared at him as he walked by, annoyed. GIR gleefully waved back, mouth still full of glove.

Zim quickly opened the door, startling Dib, who jumped slightly. Dib pulled his hand back right before he basically punched Zim in the face. "What is it now, Dib?"

"What are you doing, Zim?" Dib asked, accusingly.

"Nothing concerning you."

"Well, why weren't you at school today? Huh? Why was that?"

Zim was genuinely confused. He was at school. He had missed the first day of school after the break, but he had returned. Dib tried to convince everyone that him missing school was proof of his extraterrestrial origin. Zim was deep in thought for a moment as he tried to figure out what Dib meant. "Huh?"

"You missed the first day of school, and now you've missed another. That's not normal. Normal _human_ people don't miss so many school days."

"No, what do you mean, Dib-stink? I attended your human school today— I didn't miss it."

"No, you missed it. You missed the first day, and then you came to school yesterday. You didn't come to school today."

"Wait, has…" Zim looked around. It was much brighter than Zim would have expected. The sun was actually higher up in the sky than it should have been. His antennae perking, Zim finally came to a realization; he'd spent an entire day making weapons and had missed another school day. "Oh. It's tomorrow."

"Of co… what, did you somehow not notice that a day had passed?" Now Dib seemed genuinely confused.

"Of course Zim noticed. I just… have come down with that illness we humans get. 'Being cold'."

"...First, I've known that you're not human for a while now— you don't need to pretend you are anymore. Second, it's not called 'being cold'. What are you actually doing? Something in that underground lab of yours?"

"What? I would never use an underground lab! For any reason! Stupid Dib."

"That's just a complete lie. I've been down in your secret lab multiple times by now."

"No, you haven't! You lie. Now leave. Shoo. Go away, Dib." Zim made a sweeping motion with his hands towards Dib.

"I'm not gonna leave until I have—"

"I'll have the gnomes fire at you if you don't leave." As if they heard what Zim threatened, they all turned to face Dib suddenly. Dib noticed this, turning to see them looking at him now.

Dib didn't want to deal with gnome-fire right now. He sighed. "Fine, Zim. I'll go. But know that I'm watching you! And I'll figure out your plan!" Dib was backing up towards the street as he shouted at Zim.

"Yes, yes. Watch me. You'll find nothing!" Zim retired back into his base. He sighed, annoyed, as he began to make his way back down to his work. Hopefully, the computer had followed his instructions exactly. Everything could fall apart if he didn't. Luckily, it wasn't GIR doing it. Zim was thankful for that much at least.

Dib began to frantically pull out a small tablet as he walked back to his house. While Zim was distracted trying to figure out what day it was, he'd managed to get a camera on him! He had gotten a small camera planted onto his left shoulder. If Dib was lucky, he'd be able to unravel Zim's entire plan, maybe even getting proof that Zim was an alien, as he'd been trying in vain to accomplish. So, Dib turned on the tablet, switched to the camera's perspective, and refused to lift his eyes from the screen; he couldn't miss a single thing.

Dib nearly walked into oncoming traffic and _did _walk into three different trees as he walked home, but it was all worth it. Zim immediately rushed down into his lab. Dib _knew_ he was doing something down there. He was too good at this now. But, down in the lab, Zim and his base's computer began talking about what they were making. Weapons utilizing alien-tech. Some of them seemed downright like weapons of mass destruction. Dib couldn't believe it. He recorded as much of the footage as he could.

Zim was manufacturing weapon after weapon. That could only mean one thing— Zim was planning something big. And given that he'd missed multiple days of school now, presumably to plan this big scheme, Dib was worried. Maybe he'd actually succeed this time! Based just on the amount of firepower he had in the form of alien weaponry, although Dib wasn't actually sure just how powerful any of it was, he felt that Zim could overpower even his skills.

The moment Dib got home, he got comfortable at his desk and set up everything such that he could monitor Zim and his operations with professional levels of efficiency. One screen with the footage, another showing that the footage was indeed being recorded and downloaded, a third with a notepad which Dib took in-depth notes on. Dib stayed here, gathering damning evidence for several hours. He didn't get up at a single point during which. But then Zim's computer noticed the camera.

"Heh? Where?" Zim wondered, looking all around.

"It's on your shoulder," the computer explained. Zim felt around on his right shoulder, trying to grab this mysterious camera. "No, your left shoulder."

"Ha!" Zim half-shouted as he grabbed the camera. He turned around in his fingers as he intensely looked it over.

"The camera's probably Dib's," the computer posited while Zim continued to investigate the camera.

"Of course. _Dib. _It was all a distraction! A distraction to put a camera on me. Good thing this is the first time Dib's done this sort of thing. I haven't been distracted by him before now, and I won't be distracted by him again." Zim set the camera down onto his workstation and reached over for some sort of blowtorch. He lit it and blasted the camera, which quickly began to melt into a small puddle of molten metal and glass.

The feed from Dib's camera distorted for a split second before quickly cutting out, and Dib stood up suddenly. Then sort of stumbled because his legs were numb. Then, after a moment, he recovered, and started to gather up some of his things; he was going to confront Zim about all of this, and he was going to do whatever he needed to to get to the bottom of it. To accomplish that, he was going to have to be prepared. So, he grabbed whatever tools he thought he might need from his room— enough to resist Zim _and _his weapons, if he needed to, surely. Then, not stopping to turn off his monitors or think about his plan, he rushed out of his room and down the stairs, not even being stopped as he ran out the door. He rushed through the streets, lit by the yellow-orange streetlights as the sun began to disappear behind the horizon. His shadow stretched out in front of him, eventually climbing up the side of Zim's base once he had arrived.

"...Dib's outside again," the computer stated.

Zim dropped his tools immediately, nearly the moment the computer finished speaking. "Again? Already? It hasn't even been that long since he _last _bothered me." Zim made his way up to the front door.

Zim yanked the front door open. "Stop bothering me."

"What are you doing down in your lab?" Dib asked, nearly interrogating him.

"Nothing. I have to keep answering the door so I haven't gotten any chances to even go in there. Now go."

"Thanks for the joke, Zim. But what are you actually doing? I saw you making weapons through my camera feed. Wh—"

"Oh, yes. Here's your camera back." Zim handed Dib what had been left behind after Zim melted his camera. It was a solid lump of metal, looking something like a coin, almost. "I will not let you distract me again. And I will not let you give me your _unsolicited cameras._"

Dib sighed, looking at the puddle his camera had been reduced to before pocketing it. "Tell me about the weapons. What are you going to use them for? Who's gonna die? Where are you getting the resources for them? How many do you have? How dangerous are they? How many—"

"Close your face flap. You ask too many questions."

"Fine. What are they for?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? You're just making these dangerous weapons for… for what, fun?"

"Yes. Now I've answered a question. That means you should leave and never come back here."

"No. Why are you making all of these, really? Is it some world domination scheme? You know I'll thwart any of those plans you come up with."

"It's not for that. Bye." Zim went to close the door on Dib.

"No." Dib stuck his foot in the door. "I'm not leaving until I get answers."

"What?" Dib forcibly pushed his way in, Zim nearly stumbling back. Dib continued farther into the base, not slowing at any point. He hopped over GIR and a large pizza he had sitting on the floor in front of him, and he ran into the fake kitchen. "Hey! Get out of my base! My house, I mean!"

Zim began to chase after Dib but slipped when he stepped on GIR's pizza, which gave Dib a lead. Dib was able to start towards Zim's underground lab, and Zim wasn't even close. He hurried, taking the same route as Dib, hoping that Dib didn't remember enough about his base to find the room where he'd been working.

Unfortunately for Zim, that seemed to be exactly the case. By the time he made it down to his lab, Dib had already made his way in. When Zim rounded the corner and was in front of his workstation, Dib had already made it and had grabbed one of the weapons out of the rather large pile, and was aiming it directly at Zim. It was a large one, looking similar to a rocket launcher.

"See? I found all of your weapons. Now tell me what all of this is or I'll have to shoot you with this… thing," Dib warned.

Zim was visibly panicking. Dib had, of course, managed to grab one of the most dangerous things out of that pile. If he fired it in this underground, enclosed space, it would kill both Zim and Dib, guaranteed. His voice trembling nearly imperceptibly, Zim explained, "That'll kill both of us if you fire it."

Dib tightened and adjusted his grip, now aiming it nearly directly and Zim's head. Not that it really mattered, of course. "I don't believe you. I think you're lying, Zim."

"Why would I— well, I see why I might lie. But I'm not! If you fire that, it will devastate the whole base and destroy both of us in an instant." Zim gestured towards it with his hand, careful not to move too quickly; he was sure that if he wasn't as careful as he could be, Dib would kill him.

"Okay, Zim. Tell me what the point of all of this is or I'll do it."

Zim sighed. He really didn't have any other option at this point. "I see. You are ruthless, Dib. I hate that as much as I hate you. But I see that I must explain. So lower the gun a little. Here's what this is about."


	5. Explaining

Dib tipped the end of the gun downward some, with it now pointing more at Zim's legs. That comforted Zim a _little _bit, although having such a completely dangerous weapon pointed at him _at all_ wasn't really comforting. Zim eased up, loosening up his tense, alert pose, and began, "So, it was a couple of Earthen days ago when the Tallest… they—"

"Your leaders back at your alien home planet, right?" Dib interrupted with a mix of genuine questioning and snideness.

"Yes, the Tallest. I received a transmission from them not too long ago. In it, they, uh," Zim thought for a moment on the right words, remembering the transmission and what the Tallest had said to Zim and about him, "expressed their disapproval of me. And then th—"

"What? Your leaders don't like you? That's a shame." It was hard to tell if that was just Dib being mean or poorly expressing some sort of sympathy. Zim guessed the prior, with how Dib was.

"Yes. And they let me know that they were actually going to bring the Armada this way specifically so that they could…"

"'This way'? What do you mean 'this way'?" Dib adjusted his grip of the gun, inadvertently, or advertently, pointing it towards Zim's chest again.

"They're going to bring the Armada towards Earth."

"Armada... Are those the ships that came to Earth after you opened the Florpus?"

"Yes. And the Tallest want to bring them here to… well, um..."

Dib scoffed. "You're making all this up." Dib aimed the gun directly at the center of Zim's chest. Zim squirmed in discomfort.

"I'm not! It's just that—"

"You're trying to come up with something. These weapons are all for trying to take over the planet! Obviously! You're n—"

"The Tallest want to kill me! They're coming to Earth specifically to kill me, stupid Dib!" Zim shouted, leaning forward to gather more force from within himself, almost shouting directly into the barrel of the gun.

"Oh, that's a lie, too, Zim. You just came up with that as I called your bluff. This is just like when you _tricked _me into believing your story the other day! I'm not gonna let you do the whole Florpus thing again!"

"What if I said they were going to destroy your precious Earth, too?"

Dib chuckled. "I wouldn't believe you, still. You're just trying to seem all sad and make your lie seem all important and stuff, but you just made all this stuff up so I wouldn't shoot you with one of these weapons you've been making— to take over the world with. I should shoot you with this… thing."

"That would kill you, too!"

"That's also a lie!"

"Your face is a lie, Dib-stink!"

"Alright, here you—"

"Both of you, shut up." The computer boomed from the ceiling. Instantly, the two stopped, just as Dib was about to pull the gun's trigger. "How about I just play the transmission? Then I won't get destroyed by a nuclear explosion."

"Yes, good idea, computer. Very good," Zim agreed.

As a monitor sprung down from the ceiling, Dib looked down at the gun observing it and trying to analyze it, then over to Zim. "Nuclear explosion?"

Then the transmission began to play. Dib watched with fascination as he saw even more indisputable proof of the existence of aliens. He kind of wished he was recording it. Dib did somewhat enjoy it when the Tallest began to yell at Zim. Schadenfreude and all that. Then it turned into a sort of discomfort as they continued to get angrier and angrier and Zim. It seemed really aggressive— perhaps even unnecessary. Then Dib felt his stomach drop; Zim was right. His leaders really did want to kill him. Not only was Zim maybe telling the truth about all this, but he could also be actually _assassinated _by his leaders. And as he was wondering about what Zim said meant for him, his fears were validated; Earth _could _be in danger. They would destroy it if that's what it took to destroy Zim. That was much more important than any scheme Zim had ever tried. And then, the transmission ended, with little more than that.

Dib looked down from the monitor as it retreated back up into the innards of Zim's base, and he looked over to Zim, who seemed to be depressed by the transmission. His antennae were flattened against his head as he continued to stare towards where the monitor had been moments ago. "You're not lying," Dib mumbled, still holding the gun in a ready stance.

"Of course not, stupid human. Of course the Tallest want to kill me. I'm the biggest failure in the whole of Irken history. The biggest failure in all of the universe," Zim cried out, becoming more and more desperate-sounding as he spoke. He really sounded on the verge of tears. Or whatever the Irken equivalent was— Dib didn't know.

Dib barely knew what to say. Zim was clearly extremely emotionally affected by what his leaders had said to him, and Dib couldn't exactly blame him. Schadenfreude was nice, sure, but this was maybe too much. It felt more like a punch in the gut than any sort of triumph. "Uh, I think that you're being a little dramatic, Zim. I doubt that you're the biggest failure in the universe." Dib's attempt to alleviate the situation was awkward and not exactly effective.

"No, I really am. Who disappoints their leaders as much as I do? You couldn't be as terrible as me if you tried, Dib. You're better than I am." Zim was clearly in some sort of self-deprecating rut, and it was really surprising to see Zim act as such. Zim had really never been anything less than overtly prideful and hubristic, so this was completely out of character. Dib didn't really know what to say.

"That, uh… doesn't mean that you… necessarily… um, are…" Dib struggled to come up with something to make this situation less unpleasant. He was basically alone with Zim, underground, as he seemed to be getting sadder and sadder, and Dib couldn't really do much else than stand there holding some alien weapon. Both Dib and Zim were silent for a few seconds, Dib uncomfortably standing there, trying to avoid looking at Zim. Then, "Hold on, is Earth in danger?" That was a bit more pressing than any emotional distress Zim was having.

"It could be," Zim muttered.

"How in danger? What could your leaders do to Earth? What could their ships do to Earth?"

"They could easily destroy Earth if they wanted to. Which they would want to do cause I'm a—"

"Stop it." Dib needed to put an end to Zim's self-deprecating if he was to get answers. "They could destroy all of Earth?"

"Easily. The Massive is fitted with some of the finest weaponry in the universe."

"The Massive?"

"That's the ship the Tallest are in. It's also the ship that's gonna kill—"

"Stop doing that. Are they coming now? Like, did they already leave? When are they gonna get here? How much time do we have?"

"You ask too many questions."

"How long until the Tallest get to Earth?"

"I don't know," Zim fell backward into a chair he lethargically pulled up behind him, "not too long?" Dib had the gun pointed at Zim's face now that he had sat down. "Put the gun down, back in the pile."

"Tell me when the Tall—"

Zim groaned loudly. "It'll take less time than it took me to get to Earth. The Massive's engine is magnitudes better than the Voot Cruiser's."

"Well, how long did it take _you_ to get to Earth?" Dib turned aside and carefully placed the gun back into the pile from which he'd drawn it. He looked back by the time he finished his question.

"Six of your Earth months."

"It took you _six months?_ You were in your ship for _six months?_"

"Yes. With GIR." Zim was silent for a moment. "But none of that matters now because the Tallest are—"

"Seriously, stop that. How long do you think it'll take the Massive to get here then? Two months? A month? A couple weeks?"

"Probably just a few days now."

Dib was taken aback. "A few days? The Tallest are gonna come to Earth and try to destroy Earth and to kill you in just a few days? What have you been doing?"

"Making weapons to try and stop them," Zim motioned to the pile Dib was standing by, "duh."

Dib looked over the pile. "Are these gonna stop them?"

Zim slumped down in his chair, his head falling to the seat, his legs sprawling outward and onto the floor while his arms stuck out to the sides. "Ugh, probably not."

"...Then why have you been making these!?" Dib was starting to panic.

"If I make enough, maybe I can stop the Massive?"

"Would you even be able to use all of these weapons? There's, like, thirty of these."

"No… not really. I just started making weapons. Maybe I could defend myself with them. Probably not. I probably couldn't even use one of them before the Tallest vaporized me. I don't really have any sort of plan."

"You're going to go up against your leaders in their most dangerous ship before the end of the week and you don't even have a plan?!"

"Yeah."

Dib started to pace. "Well, you've gotta come up with one, Zim."

"Why do you care if I get killed? Don't you wanna see me dissected, Dib-stink?"

"I do. But I don't want Earth to be."

"They wouldn't dissect Earth, they would just obliterate it." Zim flopped onto the ground, finally having slipped from his chair.

"That's not the point! I can't let them destroy Earth just to try and destroy you, Zim. So you need to come up with something."

"I don't think anything I come up with will work. The Tallest are obviously much better than I could—"

"Shut up! Stop doing that! Complaining and crying about how awful you apparently are isn't gonna solve anything!" Dib sighed breathily. "You know, for always being so full of yourself, you can be surprisingly annoying with how much you complain about yourself."

"...That's just another thing that I can't—"

Dib stopped pacing and turned to look down on Zim and shouted, "Shut up! Come up with a plan!"

"...We could get some sort of base and recruit people to shoot at the Massive with all of these weapons."

"...Okay. What would we need? How fast could we get it? How would we be able to take down the Massive?"

"We'd need more weapons. Need fifty filthy humans to use the weapons. Train them to use them. Defensive base to protect ourselves from the Tallest. Some sort of space force that can flank them and transport soldiers up into the Massive to destroy it."

"I'm not sure we can get most of those things, Zim."

"You're right. It was a stupid plan. I don't even really want to destroy the Massive." Zim was going to defend himself, but take down the entire Irken Empire? Zim wouldn't do that, no matter the stakes.

"Well, what else have you got?"

"That was it." Zim curled up into a loose fetal position on the ground.

"Come on. You come up with plans to take over earth nearly daily, Zim. You can come up with something else."

"...We could, uh." Zim looked over to Dib, who was expectantly looking at him, having temporarily stopped pacing again. "No. Won't do that."

"What? What was it? What were you thinking of?"

"Forget about it. It was stupid."

"I'll seriously pick up the nuclear explosion gun and shoot you with it if you don't stop complaining. You need to figure this out so Earth doesn't get destroyed. What was your idea?"

"Ugh. Well, we could infiltrate the Massive and try to take down the Tallest from inside the ship."

Dib was deep in thought for a moment. "What? Zim, that's... a good idea!" Dib said it as if he was coming to terms with the fact that Zim came up with something good for once. "How can we get in it? What can we expect? What do we need? How much—"

"Stop. If it's just both of us, then we can use the Voot Cruiser to get up to the Massive and get in. We just need to not get destroyed by its defenses or by a squadron of guards once we get in there. Then we just need to avoid being killed by its _internal_ defenses, and somehow stop them from killing me. Somehow."

"Well, you know Irken technology and all that stuff. You can probably do stuff like hack into the ship itself, right?"

"Maybe? I don't know." Zim rolled onto his back, splaying his limbs outward.

"Well, I think we should focus on doing that plan. I think it could actually work."

"'We'? Am I working with you on this now?"

"I don't want the Earth to be destroyed. I don't care if you get killed or not, but I can't let Earth be destroyed on my watch. So, we're gonna _have_ to work together."

"Ugh. I don't want to."

Dib exhaled, annoyed. "Come on. Get up, stop complaining, and get to work. You need to survive, and I need to save the Earth." Dib walked over to Zim and stuck his hand out for Zim to pull himself up to his feet with.

Zim seemed to consider Dib's offer for a moment. "Hm. Yes, alright. Consider our rivalry temporarily suspended, Dib." His PAK's mechanical legs shot out and propped Zim up onto his feet. "I'm still not touching your gross human hand, though."

Dib felt a small smile creep onto his face. "Of course not."

Zim shook himself lucid as his PAK's legs were nearly done retreating back into where they came from. He walked over to his work station and made some room by the pile of weapons. "Computer!" Zim shouted, "Get started on plan two! Zim and Dib will be infiltrating the Massive!"


	6. Training

Dib stood at the front door of Zim's base, waiting impatiently after knocking on the door. He checked the time on his phone. Then, the door opened and Dib's eyes shot up to see Zim's fake parents swing into the doorframe. "Welcome home, son!" Dib waited for the parents to part out of the way, and then he confidently marched inside and into the kitchen. He descended into Zim's lair.

A day had passed since Dib started working with Dib to keep the Tallest from killing him and destroying Earth. The two had kept themselves plenty busy in the meantime. Zim practically never left his lair as he continued to work. Indeed, he didn't return to school. And while Dib sort of wanted Zim to be called out for skipping school, he also needed this plan to work, so he made sure to let Zim know to forge a note from his fake parents about some sort of stomach sickness if he was confronted over the missed school days. Dib had returned to school, however— there wasn't really any way he could keep from going to school. Unless, maybe, if he died. But even then, his… Dib put that out of his mind.

Dib made his way down to where Zim was and walked into Zim's workspace. He seemed to be exactly how he was when Dib left to go home the previous night— stood on a stool, hunched over a table covered in computery parts and tools, both familiar and alien ones. Zim didn't seem to acknowledge Dib's arrival.

"Zim?" Dib asked as he approached the workstation.

"Hello, Dib. I assume the parent decoys' new subroutine worked fantastically," Zim responded, seemingly entirely unfazed, as if he knew Dib was behind him. His spirit had been renewed since Dib confronted him. Maybe all it took to keep Zim content was to keep him occupied.

"I mean, they let me in the same way they let you in, so—"

"Perfect!" Zim held up a small, circular device triumphantly.

"...What, me being let in or that thing?" Dib asked, pointing to the device, although Zim obviously couldn't see the pointing with his back to Dib.

"Both!" Zim then lowered his arms and lightly tossed the device into a pile on a table at his side. It was the same place the weapons Zim had been making over the past few days had been on, although Zim had taken all of those off and "dealt with them", as he had put it. It sounded menacing, although Dib wasn't sure if it was supposed to or not.

"Cool." Dib walked over to the table and picked up what Zim had just finished, "So, what is this thing then?" Dib asked, holding up the device. It kind of looked like some sort of pocket watch.

Zim glanced over to what Dib was holding up and then looked back down to his work. "I tweaked one of the weapons I made to suit our new plan better. It's stealthy now."

"What's it do, though?" Dib looked it over.

"It's able to disrupt, damage, and disengage electronic devices by utilizing high-power microwaves," Zim recited as if he was reading from a manual or a textbook.

"Like an EMP?"

"It _is_ that."

"Those are dangerous, Zim!" Dib looked down at the EMP with alarm, recalling when the city's power went down for weeks after one of his father's inventions fell off of a shelf and broke.

"That's the point!" Zim posed with his offhand dramatically, while his other continued to screw something into place in front of him. It looked kind of stupid to Dib, though.

Dib had kept up on the work Zim had been doing, as well as answering Zim's questions and concerns throughout the school day. It wasn't easy though; Zim didn't a phone or anything like that, so Zim had had to connect Dib's phone up to his… system? Dib wasn't entirely sure what Zim had done, but it meant that Dib could communicate with him in between classes, at lunch, and the like. But it certainly would be easier if Zim went out and bought an actual phone.

Dib set the EMP down without arguing with Zim any more— he did have a point about them being dangerous for a reason. They were weapons. Din pulled up a stool of some sort and sat in front of the cleanish table beside Zim, which Dib had been using yesterday. He watched Zim for a few moments and then spoke. "You know, you should buy a phone."

"Phone? Why?"

"It'd be easier to remind you not to mix acids and bases while I'm at school that way," Dib answered, referencing something Dib apparently had to remind Zim about earlier in the day when he nearly created chlorine gas in his poorly ventilated, underground science lab.

Zim looked over to Dib and silently scowled for a second. He returned back to dismantling something he had previously made. "You were able to be _consulted with_ perfectly well, even if I don't have a human phone device."

"It would be easier to _correct_ you if you _did_ have one, though, _Zim._"

"Psh. It's not a concern right now." Zim twisted something on the contraption in front of him and it quietly beeped. Zim stopped immediately, refusing to move an inch. "Dib, give me the purple tool in front of you."

"Why, what is—"

"There's no need for worry, Dib; this is isn't about to explode because I touched the wrong thing. Just hand me the—" Dib's eyes widened in panic and he quickly grabbed what Zim described and placed in Zim's hand, which had slowly withdrawn from the machine and was held out.

Zim cautiously returned to the machine and used the tool to put whatever Zim had messed with back in place. The air was tense. "As long as nothing sudden happens, I should be able to tighten—"

From right behind Zim, suddenly, there was a "Nyeh!" He slightly flinched, and Dib covered his face as he anticipated an explosion. But, there was nothing, and the two let out a long sigh. Zim put his tool down, done with the device, and turned around to see Minimoose floating behind him, obliviously. Dib hadn't even seen them come up.

"Where have you been?" Zim asked, nearly disapprovingly.

Minimoose began to float away. "Nyah!"

"Oh. Where are you going now?" Zim leaned over to see Minimoose leave the room and hover away.

"Nyah!" echoed down the hall.

"Well, when you're done, come help out in here!" Zim shouted as he turned back to his work.

Dib was silent for a moment, unsure of exactly what to say. "Did you keep the thing from exploding?"

"Of course I did. I'm Zim!" Zim posed again. He was definitely back to himself. Then he relaxed for a moment before he seemed to remember something all of a sudden. "Ah! While you were wasting your time at the school, I got access to the Massive's blueprints!" Zim stood up and moved over to a terminal against a nearby wall.

"Oh, lemme see it." Dib stood up and walked over to the terminal, standing beside Zim as he typed. It would be both exciting and useful to see the blueprints for the alien ship he was going to be boarding.

After some searching, Zim pulled up the aforementioned blueprint. It was a vast, interactive diagram, detailing all the rooms and passages on the ship. Dib looked over it with fascination. It had so much in it; the blueprint was truly in-depth, illustrating even the smallest of details. Dib could clearly see why it was called the Massive.

"Where do the Tallest stay in here?" Dib asked, leaning towards the diagram as he struggled to find anything.

"Here." Zim pointed to a large room in the front of the ship.

"Where are we gonna board this ship?"

"Probably around here." Zim gestured vaguely at a couple of rooms near the back of the ship. It looked like it was nearly as far away from the Tallest while still being on the ship.

"Huh." That seemed like quite the distance to cover. Especially in both literally and figuratively alien territory. "Alright. What defenses are there between there and the Tallest? Are there guards? Traps?" Dib wanted to know what he was getting into.

Zim scanned the blueprint. "Yes."

"...What do you mean?"

"There are a lot of things that will try to kill both of us." Zim straightened his posture. "We'll need to practice stealth. And I need to perfect my hacking ability; the Massive will surely be more difficult than anything I've attempted before. You should also familiarize yourself with the weapons I've brilliantly created." Zim walked over to the weapons and picked up a large rifle-looking gadget. "If we train, we should be able to stand anything the Tallest throw at us. Anything!"

"Alright. So how are we gonna train?" Dib stepped away from the terminal.

Minimoose floated into the room as Zim was about to start speaking. He smiled. "Ah, Minimoose. Good. Come here and help us out— we're going to begin stealth training."

It wasn't until nearly ten that night that Dib left to go home; he was going to spend all of his available time to train for this— his ultimate challenge. Zim had always been a threat to Earth; one which Dib always took very seriously, but this was something much larger, and that meant Dib would have to prepare himself more than he ever had before. Especially when there were only a few more days until the Armada arrived; not a single second could be wasted in training and preparation.

When Dib walked into his house and closed the front door behind him, he noticed Gaz in the living room, playing a game of some sort. Dib began to ascend the stairs when Gaz, not looking up from the screen, called out, "Dib."

"Uh, yeah?" Dib responded, stopping.

"Why have you been at Zim's house so much? What are you two doing over there?"

"Oh!" Dib perked up, eagerly ready to explain. "So, Zim's leaders, they don't actually like Zim all that much, and they're gonna bring the Massive— oh, that's, like, their super dangerous spaceship— over to Earth to try and kill Zim. Kill him! And normally I would _love _that, but they said that they would destroy the Earth if that's wh—"

"I don't really care that much. Also, that all sounds stupid. Their spaceship's called 'Massive'? Totally unoriginal."

"But it's true! We've been getting ready for this huge alien inv—"

"I don't care anymore. Forget I asked. It all sounds dumb. And you spending so much time at Zim's makes you seem super weird. Even weirder than usual."

"It's not! I'm training!" Dib defended himself. He started to climb up the stairs again.

"Alright. Whatever you say." With that, Dib marched into his room.

Zim left Dib one last message that night. Zim had apparently figured out where the Tallest were and how fast they were approaching Earth, and he concluded that, as of tomorrow, there would only be two more days before the Tallest arrived. Dib let that sink in, and then he prepared himself for bed. He was tired and would need to train even harder tomorrow, given that there was so little time left already. As had been proven time and time again, the responsibility of saving the Earth fell solely on Dib's shoulders.


	7. Final Days

Dib woke up to his phone vibrating on the table beside his bed. He slowly turned over and opened his eyes to see his phone shining brightly, face up. He hadn't turned down the brightness before going to bed, so he nearly closed his eyes in pain as he tried to grab his blinding phone and look at it. He quickly lowered the brightness and noticed that he'd gotten a couple of texts from some random number. Or, at least, it seemed random, until he read the texts.

'Hello, Dib. This is Zim. You'll be glad to know that I researched your human phones, and have modified one of my own devices so that it can communicate with yours as one human phone does to another. Be sure to add my "numbers" to your "contacts".'

Dib tiredly responded back with some quick taps on the screen. Then he looked at the time— it was a little past two in the morning. He sighed and set this phone back down on the table, face down this time. 'cool will do. im going back to bed now'

His phone vibrated again, just as he was about to fall asleep again. He jolted, feeling like he was falling for a moment. He hated when that happened. Dib changed positions and ignored the text for the time being.

Zim, after a few minutes, assumed Dib wouldn't be responding soon, as so got back to work. Foolish Dib, needing to sleep every night. Zim would continued training while Dib wasted his time. Challenging the Massive wouldn't be an easy feat. Ignoring the need for stealth and weaponry, Zim would also need to be able to gain access into the Massive's computer systems in order for them to work their way through it. And while, typically, he'd rely heavily on his base's computer for such things— and he had a plan for that too— but, he'd have to do much of it himself when he was aboard the Massive. So, he had been and would continue to practice gaining access into computers, terminals, and any other device that could be of use.

He had practiced with his own stuff first, purposefully locking himself out and then attempting to get back in. Initially, it was nearly a disaster when his defenses nearly tried to destroy him, but with a few tweaks to defense protocols and some practice, he quickly found himself proficient in hacking his own technology. Zim next practiced hacking into various Irken tech he'd acquired over time, which were certainly a bit different, and more challenging. He lost track of time as he moved from machine to machine, spending who knows how long working on it until he eventually succeeded.

Zim was in the middle of a bid to gain access to a small, nearly marble-sized device. It was plugged into a terminal, where Zim was typing. He was distracted enough that he didn't notice when Dib entered the room behind him. Surprisingly, he didn't even notice when Dib set some of his stuff down against the wall and stumbled some as he approached Zim. Dib looked over at the device plugged into the terminal and then, after a moment of silence as Dib looked over at Zim, still not noticing him, asked, "What's that thing?"

Zim flinched a bit, although he quickly tried to play it off, "It's a component for a robot."

"What does it do?"

"They serve as the control center for a robot's weapons. It does everything from making them activate to running diagnostics and repairs." It sounded so much like Zim was just reading off of something that Dib tried to lean over and see what it was that Zim was looking at. There wasn't any textbook or something in front of him though.

"Huh. Neat. Well, are you making a robot?"

"No, stupid. I'm practicing with it. These things have a rather strong internal security system. They are important, after all. But it's just a part I had lying around." After a pause, "I'd install it in GIR if I thought that would actually work."

"Oh. Okay." Dib ignored what Zim said about GIR. "Is it going well?" Dib sat down.

"It's slow. I'd prefer if it was going a little bit—" Zim stopped because he, as he was speaking, succeeded at gaining access to it, some sort of interface opening up on the terminal. "Oh, maybe not."

"Did you do it?"

"Yes. I'm even better than I thought." Zim looked triumphant.

"Ugh. Whatever." Dib rolled his eyes. At least he wasn't loudly moping like the other day. Then, "Well, what is it today, then? I think that I should try to m—"

"Practice being stealthy against Minimoose some more." Zim sort of vaguely swatted behind him as some sort of gesture of where Dib should go.

"What, again? But I _am _stealthy. Somehow. Youdidn't even _notice_ me come in a few minutes ago!"

"That's simply because I was focusing on my work! Engrossed by the intricacies and complexity of both the task and the technology! Besides, Minimoose needs some training, too. And—"

"Are they coming with us?"

"Who, Minimoose? Yes, of course! He's a dangerous weapon, unlike anything the universe has seen before! He'll serve us well upon the Massive." Zim inadvertently ended up in another overly dramatic pose while he was speaking. He relaxed and continued, "Anyway, don't interrupt me."

"Wha— you interrupted me just a few seconds ago!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you di—"

"But," Zim interrupted, "once we're both done, I have a plan on what to do next. And I'm sure you'll enjoy it, Dib. You'll enjoy it yet." He smiled mischievously and began to snigger.

"We're on the same side on this, Zim. You don't need to keep your plans secret and laugh maniacally about them. Unless they're evil." A pause. "This isn't something evil, is it?"

"No, not this time, it's just fun to—"

There was a "nyah!" from behind Zim. He turned around, somewhat surprised, and saw Minimoose nearly right behind him.

"Yes, there you are. Go help the Dib out. And I will return to my work." Minimoose squeaked and drifted off.

"Do I have to do this?" Dib complained.

"No, but it is imperative for… _the Earth._"

Zim was pulling the "save the Earth" card again. Well, Dib always easily fell victim to it, and it would seem this time was no different. Dib sighed breathily. "Yeah, alright."

So, for the next hour or so, the two went about their business. Dib and Minimoose both practiced being covert and sneaky. Dib certainly did improve, especially in the alien environment, which Dib could atone to never trying to be quiet and stealthy in; it was harder than he initially thought. And Zim continued to work with various devices to hone in on his skills with technology. Once he'd used up all of the Irken tech he had access to, he had Dib grant him access to some of his tech, to which Dib tentatively agreed, although he didn't allow Zim into his most important, personal, internal systems. Of course he wouldn't— those were practically of national significance.

Zim had little difficulty with Dib's technologies. Whether it was actually ill-protected or Zim had just gained enough experience from his practice, he couldn't tell. Dib explained it away simply as a fluke; his technology simply hadn't been updated recently. But, once Zim had finished running through the last of the tech that Dib had granted him access to, he stood up with a start, startling Dib, who was crouched down behind a corner only a few feet away from him.

"Minimoose! Cease the practice!" Zim shouted.

"Why? What is it?" Dib asked, both confused and nervous as to what Zim was doing so suddenly. There was a quiet "nyeh" from down the hall as Dib spoke.

"It's time for something different, Dib!" Zim walked over to the modified weapons and grabbed a few. "Computer, ready the Voot Cruiser!"

"Ugh. Fine," said the computer.

"What's the cruiser for?" Dib questioned, possibly even more confused now.

"You're going to practice with these!" Zim held up what he'd grabbed.

"That didn't answer my question And these are dangerous— I don't wanna hurt myself on some futuristic, nuclear… whatever alien gun!"

"We discussed their dangerousness already! And we're going to take the ship out for you to practice with them!"

"Do I need to?"

"Yes, so that you know what you're doing aboard the Massive."

"Where's this practice happening, Zim? Somewhere still on Earth, right? Cause I can't be out in space all night!"

"Sure, whatever. I'll figure out where in a minute!"

After everything had been gathered up, the two made their way towards where the ship was, only for Zim to be stopped by GIR.

Zim stumbled, nearly tripping over GIR, who he could barely see, holding a tad less than a dozen weapons in his arms, blocking his vision some. "GIR? What is it?"

"Where you goin'?" GIR asked.

"Somewhere. It doesn't concern you." Zim tried to step around GIR, only for GIR to step in his path again.

"Why not? I wanna go!"

"No, GIR; this is important, and you always mess up important things."

"I won't! Lemme come!" GIR pleaded. "Lemme go somewhere with you!"

"No, GIR. Now mo—"

"Lemme come! I wanna go!" GIR reached up to Zim. "Go! Going! Go somewhere!"

Zim looked to Dib, who simply shrugged. With a sigh, Zim begrudgingly agreed. "Fine. Just don't bother me."

"Yay! Okay!" And GIR ran ahead.

And with that, they left, with only an hour or two of sunlight left. Zim eventually took the Voot Cruiser into the woods, landing in an open clearing. GIR practically jumped out before the ship had even landed yet. He immediately started running off into the woods, chasing some sort of animal. It was a good thing Zim had made him put on his dog suit before they left, although Zim was still devoid of a disguise.

"So… which one should I, um..." Dib wondered, looking at all of the weapons. He's calmed down during the ride once Zim further clarified what Dib was going to do.

"Hmm…" Zim walked over towards Dib, "Use that one." He pointed to a small gadget in the middle of the pile. "You're least likely to accidentally kill yourself with that if you misfire."

"Is there still a chance?" Dib hesitantly reached out and grabbed it.

"Yes."

"I don't know if I want to, Zim; that's dang—"

"Yes, so I've heard. You'll be fine." Then, under his breath, "Probably." He straightened his posture, "Just try shooting at that tree," Zim directed, pointing at a tree several yards away. And then he stood there confidently, a teacher waiting for their student to utilize their teachings. When Dib didn't do anything, he slumped a bit, and then reached over to the gun and started to further direct. "This is the shooting part, aim it at the tree." Zim redirected the gun towards the tree. "Shoot with this." He put Dib's finger on something resembling a trigger. "Don't look directly at the blast and don't do anything else stupid." Zim stepped back. "Okay, got it?"

"Uh… yeah. Okay." And with some trepidation, he proceeded to steady himself and pulled the trigger. A yellow ray, a laser of sorts, shot out and struck the tree with a horrendous amount of force, and out came a plume of smoke and a shockwave through the air. When the smoke cleared, there was a sizeable hole in the tree, which looked ready to collapse at the drop of a hat. Dib gaped at the tree, then looked down at the weapon, then to Zim. "This thing is amazing, Zim!"

"Yes, it is much more advanced than anything you _humans_ could ever design."

"Yeah! How much ammunition does it have— how much can it shoot?" The tree began to bend towards the ground at where the ray shot into it.

"It can shoot, if everything works right, which of course it should with me engineering it," Zim boasted as Dib rolled his eyes, "then it should shoot a hundred of those rays before you need to hand it ba—"

"Look what I found!" GIR screamed, running back towards the two, holding a writhing squirrel in his mitts, raised high above him.

Zim took a good look at GIR and what he had and sighed. "Yes, very good, GIR. You have an animal."

"Yup!" GIR stood there for a moment, silent. Just as Zim was to open his mouth to say something, GIR started yelling again. "It's mine! I gonna keep it!" GIR then began to run off, squeaking as he did. He tried to shove the squirrel into his dog suit or into his robotic body.

Zim watched him run off again and then turned back to Dib. "When it stops shooting, hand it back to me and it'll work again. It's simple, really, Dib-stink."

Dib ignored the continued name-calling. "So, keep practicing with this?" Dib held up the gun.

"Yes. Don't destroy the whole forest. I don't need any _humans_ getting suspicious and seeing Zim without a disguise! But when you're practiced with that one, I'll get you another weapon to practice with."

"I can grab them myself."

"Fine. Blow yourself up; see if I care. The secret is: I won't."

Dib looked back over to Zim. "Ha. Very good joke, Zim," Dib deadpanned. "Yeah, alright, you can grab me a weapon."

"You understand. Now I'll get working on something else I've been meaning to do if you'll stop bothering me."

And with a subtle huff, Dib returned to practicing with the Irken weapons Zim had provided him with. And he certainly enjoyed it. Never had he gotten to play with something so cool, and especially not one so surprisingly easy to use. He mastered each weapon with ease, only taking a few minutes to learn the intricacies of each weapon. Dib took some mental notes, sure to use some of the ideas and tech from these things in some of his own stuff. Maybe he could even show his dad something he didn't know. Maybe.

But regardless, Dib mastered the weapons, and Zim showed him how to use each one when he first began. It was a bit surprising, really— to see Zim being so not hostile. Well, he was certainly still boisterous and rude, although maybe not quite so much; but that was just Zim through and through. No, Zim wasn't trying to kill Dib, not that he had been trying over the past few days, instead he was being rather helpful, perhaps even a bit benign and friendly. It was strange. Dib chalked it up to Zim being distracted by his work, because the alternative was that Zim wasn't awful, which was something that simply didn't compute.

Indeed, Zim _was _deeply involved in his work, as he had been practically, nonstop, since he started the plan he and Dib had created. He was sitting in the Voot Cruiser, tinkering with a small, rectangular device. It looked similar to a walkie-talkie or a phone, perhaps. It was to allow Zim access to his base's computer even when he was away. Say, on the Massive? That was the goal, at least. He'd already installed a small chip into one of the terminals back at his base, so all he had to do was 'matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match' and sync this device up with the terminal. That is, once he was done building it.

When Zim was done building his little gadget, he relaxed in the Voot Cruiser, leaning back and watching the sun start to dip low in the sky, approaching the horizon quickly, as Dib continued to practice gunmanship— at least with regards to alien weaponry. It was a nice break from all the work he'd been doing, although he knew he wouldn't be taking this break if there had actually been something else for him to do. That was, until Dib moved on to the next gun. When Zim got up to show Dib how to use this one, he didn't go back and sit back down, and instead stood alongside Dib, watching with pride as Dib caught on to the elegant design of his weaponry. Maybe the Dib wasn't so terrible after all. At shooting, that was.

By the time the sun set and the two were ready to depart, they had spent around two hours in the woods. Dib gained vital experience with several of the weapons, some of which he'd surely be using when the time came, and Zim had accomplished enough, even with his break. GIR had… well, Zim wasn't sure what GIR had done, although he was certainly made nervous after, when Zim called from him back to the Voot Cruiser, he returned with his dog suit wriggling with life beneath the surface of it. Hopefully, he wouldn't let loose a plague of squirrels or any other small animals while in the ship, or while back at the base, for that matter.

So, another day had come to close, and there was only one more day before the Armada actually arrived, and all of their training and skill would be put to the test. Dib wouldn't be busied by school on this final day, fortunately, as the school week had also come to a close. No, instead, this final day could be used exclusively for important, last-minute training. Some final points, adjustments, et cetera, and they would be ready.

And when that last day came to its close, Zim had already had the computer run the numbers and do the calculations, and they had a specific time of the Armada's arrival— about mid-morning. Dib set several alarms so that he would wake up in time, guaranteed. And Zim spent the night training for it. Facing the Tallest. He absolutely still had some thoughts about it. Some trepidation, some conflicting opinions in his own head. But at this point, with the danger drawing so close, with the plan so ready to be exacted, with everything in place and his life on the line, there wasn't exactly all that much room for those sorts of thoughts. Just readying and anxiety. He would prevail, however.

Hopefully.


	8. Final Touches

The alarm went off. Dib popped up out of bed, kicking the covers out of the way. It was as if he was ready for this exact moment, even as he slept. And he hurriedly propelled himself through his morning routine, although he didn't exactly care about it too much; it wasn't nearly as important as what was going to happen that day, because today was the day that the last several days of work would finally come into play. Today, he would decide the planet's fate.

Dib was almost done getting ready to leave the house, having gotten dressed, hastily fixing his hair, et cetera, and now he was hurriedly scarfing down some breakfast, which consisted of cereal and milk, with which he had spilled a little. As he was eating it, checking his phone for a moment to see if he had received anything new from Zim, in case something had changed, his dad began to speak to him.

"Now, where are you off to, son?" Dr. Membrane asked, apparently having been tinkering with the toaster just off to the side. He looked up for a moment and met eyes with Dib, who did the same. How did Dib not notice him there?

"Oh, uh, I'm going off to meet Zim. I'll probably be gone the whole day," Dib explained.

"What are you two doing today? No wrongdoing, yes?" He lowered the toaster and his instruments for a moment, staring Dib in the eyes. "Not something that I have to intervene in?"

Dib nervously laughed that moment off. "No, we're not doing anything bad. No, uh, wrongdoing." Dr. Membrane went back to the toaster. Since when did he care so much about such things?

"Good. I'll be _extraordinarily _busy today, and I can't have _any _distractions! So don't need me."

"Yeah, of course. I know." Dib was about to leave now, almost down shoving his cereal down his throat.

Dr. Membrane was quiet for a moment, as was Dib, until he spoke again, "Well, now I _am _curious; what _are_ you two doing?"

"Oh, well we're gonna stop the Earth from being destroyed."

"Saving the Earth! I remember when I first had to save the Earth! A creature of my own, _macabre_, _morbid _design was rampaging through the streets, slaughtering people by the dozen." Dib looked at his father with confusion, concern, and curiosity. "We're all lucky that I though to install a remote killswitch." He laughed heartily. "We would all be dead if it weren't for that killswitch."

Dib had never heard this story before. "When did that happen?"

"Not long before you were formed." Formed? Dib was opening his mouth to question his dad's word choice when he continued, "Well, it's not often that you get to save the world, so enjoy it, son!" A pause. "What'd going to try to destroy the world, son?"

"Zim's leaders don't like him, and are trying to destroy him, so they'll—"

"What leaders? The mayor? His local congressman? The governor? Does it go all the way to the top? I knew they were implicated in this!" Dr. Membrane looked more and more concerned as he spoke. He almost looked ready to run out of the room and go kill everyone he mentioned.

"No, from his home planet. They—"

Dr. Membrane sighed heavily, relaxing. "Alien balderdash. Of course. My poor, poor, son. I should have known that it was all lies."

"It's not lies, it's what's really going to happen! A whole fleet of alien spaceships are going to arrive at Earth just later today! Keep an eye on the skies and you'll see them! I swear!"

"Son, you know I'm much too busy to waste my time entertaining your fantasies. Especially today." Dr. Membrane checked the time. "In fact, I'm needed at the lab four minutes ago. Well, son, good luck wasting your youth on nonsense;" he set down the toaster and the tools and began to leave the room, "I need to travel back in time four minutes and get to the laboratory!"

Dib weakly waved to his dad as he left. And then he realized that he needed to go, too. He finished the last few spoonfuls of cereal and grabbed his briefcase. He had, for today, filled it with everything that could help him out today, in possibly his most dangerous mission yet. There were tools of every variety. Who knows what exactly he might need while on the alien ship? Might as well bring as much as he could. Consequently, the briefcase was heavier today than it usually was. Dib had to exert more force than he would any other day to lug it with him as he left the house and made for Zim's base. He might have to leave some things behind before he left for the ship, he noted.

Getting into the base was the same as it had been the past couple of days. Zim had programmed the robot parents to let him in just as they let him in, and he walked into an, again, empty home. So, he made his way into the fake kitchen and down into Zim's lair, where he could immediately tell he was.

Dib walked in, where Zim, again, had his back to Dib, hard at work with something or another. Dib spoke, "What are you doing now?"

Zim turned around in his chair to see Dib. "Some quick adjustments to my work as of the last few Earthen days. I need to make sure everything works right." He seemed nervous, too.

"Well, the Armada's arriving in only…" He pulled out his phone to check the time and see how much time was left before showtime. As he was pulling his phone out, his second alarm went off, startling both him and Zim. He quickly shut it off. "Sorry, ignore that. That was just in case I, uh, didn't wake up. But, there's only, like, half an hour before they arrive." He went into his phone, as he was speaking, and got rid of all of the other alarms before they went off.

"Of course I know that, stupid Dib! Do you think Zim doesn't remember to check the time while he works?"

"Yeah, I do. You literally didn't realize a _whole day _passed by not too long ago."

"Oh. Yes. You're right. Well, anyway, I didn't know that. But it's because these final touches are extremely important!"

"Do you think that we're ready?" Dib set his briefcase down against the wall before leaning against the wall.

"Of course! ...Probably." Zim turned to the side slightly and rested his head in his hand. "Tell me, human, do you think that this is going to work?"

"What? Why are you asking _me?_ They're _your_ leaders and it's _your_ plan! And right now, Zim? Right before it happens?"

"I'm simply getting your thoughts on it!" He lifted his head back up, turning around back to face Dib. "Everything is laid out according to plan, which is almost guaranteed to probably work. But I need to be cautious. So what do you think? Is… is this going to keep me from being killed?"

Well, Zim certainly seemed nervous. It was to be expected, Dib supposed, but it was still something Dib wasn't used to seeing from Zim: weakness and uncertainty. Zim was always so sure of himself, full of himself, really, and so overconfident that it just felt wrong to see Zim so anxious. Of course, there were obviously reasons for Zim to not be acting like usual now. His life was on the line here. He'd had something of a mental breakdown just a few days ago, and there really was no telling whether he was okay now. The question was, however, what could Dib say to reassure Zim? He had no idea either, less than Zim, certainly. Was the best option just to lie?

"Uh, well, you've made all this stuff, and we've, um, practiced with them, so it's pro—"

From behind Zim, towards his workstation, there was a sudden, louder than usual, "Nyeh!" Zim, for perhaps the third time since Dib first entered Zim's base, recoiled slightly in surprise. Zim turned around to face Minimoose, floating above the small table.

"How do you keep doing that? Stop popping up out of nowhere," Zim instructed.

And with another "Nyah!", Zim's scowl softened and he relaxed. "Yes, of course. Anyway, it's good that you're here now; you will be leaving with us shortly!" Zim watched as Minimoose drifted over towards Dib, to which Zim turned to face him again. "Oh, and what were you saying?"

"Oh, well, I think that it's gonna work. We've spent a lot of time getting everything together, and I think that's gonna work out in the end." That was a sort of lie, simply because Dib didn't know. He didn't really _doubt_ Zim, but he didn't have any actual idea how well any of this would go. "But is there anything else I can do before we go?" That seemed like the least Dib could offer in hopes to keep Zim from being too anxious— him being all nervous, and especially if he acted like he did the other day, wouldn't help the mission out at all. And Dib, for both of their lives' sakes, couldn't have that.

"...It might be useful if you and me both go—" And from there, it was last minute training exercises and briefings for what was to come. When Zim's computer signalled that the Armada was arriving, they'd make it to the Voot Cruiser and meet the Massive in the sky, dock, and enter the ship. From there, only their skills, their tools, and their weaponry could guide them through the ship to the Tallest. Although, there was no real plan for what to do once they reached the Tallest, which neither of them seemed to notice, or at least, were willing to point out.

And when, roughly twenty-five minutes later, the computer gave the alert, notifying the group that the Armada was within a couple of minutes of Earth, the two stopped what they were doing, and immediately made haste. Zim grabbed Minimoose, as well as many weapons as he could grab. Dib picked up his briefcase and the remaining weapons. Then it was a race to the Voot Cruiser. There couldn't be a second wasted. And then, if everything else went to plan, then everything would have been worth it. The Earth saved, and Zim still alive.

And they arrived in the Voot Cruiser quickly. Everything was thrown into the ship, and the three passengers were seated inside. Zim began to pick the Voot Cruiser up off of the surface of the Earth and up into the sky. This was it. They would decide their own fates now.


	9. Battle

The view from inside the Voot Cruiser while up in the air was incredible. It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying. Dib had already seen the Armada approach Earth when Zim had opened the Florpus, but that didn't mean that this time was any less frightening. The Massive took up a large portion of the sky and took up more and more of the view with every passing moment as it approached closer. It alone looked like a threat to the planet's continued existence; no, the whole solar system's continued existence. And flanking the Massive, which rightfully deserved that name, was tens, hundreds, of smaller, yet still formidable ships. Each of them looked like they could individually level a city or two, and there were dozens of then. The Voot Cruiser continued to lift farther off of the ground and drew closer to the Massive, an _existential _threat.

Dib looked over to Zim, whose countenance was something between determined and unfazed. It was encouraging to see at least _someone _who looked to be confident. Dib looked back to see the Massive, taking up perhaps half of the sky. With him, Zim, and Minimoose, he felt that he could, maybe, take on—

"Where we goin'!?"

Zim jumped, jerking the ship's controls for a moment as he did, resulting in the Voot Cruiser taking a sudden turn to the right, before he righted it again. Dib nearly punched the source of the sound as he hastily turned to face it. GIR had apparently made his way onto the ship without anyone noticing.

"GIR? What are you doing here?" Zim loudly shouted, glancing over his shoulder for a second.

"You were leaving, and I wanted to come! Where we goin'?" GIR sputtered out. This ship was too small for GIR to somehow board and not be seen. Where had he even been hiding?

"I didn't want you coming with us, GIR! This is too important for you to ruin!"

"I won't! I don't— ooh! Wuzzat?" GIR lunged forward at the controls of the ship.

"GIR! No! Stop that!" Zim fought against GIR. "Dib! Help me!"

Dib reached towards them and tried to grab GIR and pull him away. As he did, Minimoose squeaked and began to float into the way. GIR crawled over everything as if he were some sort of spider, eluding capture. And as things only became more of a mess, one of Zim's devices spoke up, "There's a transmission from the Tallest." It was Zim's computer, it seemed.

"Agh! GIR! Sit down! Sit!" Then, to the side, Zim continued, "Put the transmission through!" He turned back. "Stop it now, GIR! I'll throw you back down to the surface!"

The computer obliged, despite Zim's struggling, and put up the transmission on a small screen in the controls of the ship. Zim and Dib both attempted to see it as they fought for control of the ship's controls, with the ship swerving erratically around in the air. The transmission came from the bridge, with Red and Purple in frame.

"Alright, Zim, we're here now. Go ahead and give yourself up now," Red, unimpressed, explained.

"Yeah! Be easy to kill! Come on out and let us explode you!" Purple agreed.

"There's no reason to make things any more difficult than they need to be."

"For you. Cause it'll still be easy for us!"

"It _will _still be really easy. But we'll give you a second to go ahead and walk outside and give up."

The two stood, silent, waiting for a moment as Dib finally grabbed GIR and pulled him off of Zim, who was able to get firm control of the ship again. He waved Minimoose away like they were a fly. Dib held GIR, who was thrashing about like a scared animal or an angry child, and Zim and Dib watched the transmission with interest now; Zim still made sure to pilot the right direction, however.

"...Okay, done waiting. And I don't see you giving up!" Red shouted.

"Stop hiding in your base! We can tell you're just hiding in there! Like a scared… uh, scared person," Purple complained.

Dib turned to Zim, still holding tightly onto GIR, "But you're not even in your base. Can they not see the ship coming directly at them?" Zim shrugged.

"We're charging up our weapons, Zim. And if you don't give up by the time they're fully charged, then we're just gonna blow up the planet," Red explained.

"Which includes you!" Purple added.

"Of course it includes Zim!" Red turned to face Purple, "How would it not—"

"Emphasis! That was emphasis on him being destroyed!"

"It doesn't need—"

"Computer! Shut off the transmission!" Zim shouted over the Tallest's bickering. Near immediately, the screen froze and then shut off.

"We can't let them blow up the Earth! How do they think that you're still in your base?" Dib, slightly panicked, questioned.

"I don't know. Somehow they think they're tracking me in my base and have missed my Voot Cruiser. This stealth could be exactly what we need!"

"Not if it means that the planet is destroyed!" The ship's front was alight with crackling electricity and bright multi-colored lights. It was a mesmerizing sight, if it weren't for the horrifying context; these were planet destroyers, and they were pointed right at Earth.

"That… is true. It would be a shame if Earth is destroyed." Zim thought about it. It was, as it were, the least worst planet for him to live on for the time being.

"A shame? Just, a shame? That's all—" Dib stopped himself, suddenly having a thought, "Hold on, if we could prove that you weren't on Earth, the Tallest would have no reason to destroy Earth, right?"

"Well, they only want to kill me, so yes."

"I've got an idea. Get us onto the Massive as quickly as possible, I've got a way to keep them from destroying Earth," Dib hurriedly directed, letting go of GIR, who was now disinterested in the controls and Zim. He instead now just fell asleep next to Zim, who was now too busy piloting to look at GIR. Dib pulled his briefcase towards him and searched through it for a moment before drawing out some sort of tablet. He set aside the briefcase, closed again, and began to use the device with haste.

It wasn't long after that that Zim had the Voot Cruiser pulled up to the Massive. It seemed, now that they were nearly at the surface of it, to fill up the entire field of vision, stretching in either direction forever. It was a colossal structure, and its whole reason for being here at Earth was to kill Zim. It seemed like overkill.

Zim had made it to a sort of docking station, typically used for the smaller ships that supported the Massive, the hundreds or thousands of them that there were. Somehow, Zim had managed to slip by them undetected, and was able to approach and enter the aforementioned station. It was a large, open bay, similar in purpose and, at least somewhat, in looks to a mechanic's or a repair shop. There were many different spots for these large vessels to dock, to be repaired, to be built, and even smaller spots where it looked like supply vessels could be loaded or unloaded, as evidenced by the chutes, ramps, and boxes; there was also one of the supply vessels still docked there. It was adorned with a logo in a language Dib couldn't identify, presumably the Irkens' language.

Zim's Voot Cruiser docked in an empty slot, with no one nearby it. However, immediately after landing, some sort of robot or automatic repair system sprung to life at its sides and began to loudly scan and physically investigate the vehicle, drawing the attention of various Irkens in other parts of the vast facility.

After a moment, when this had finally ended, Zim quickly began to leave the ship, with Dib, GIR, and Minimoose following suit, all hauling weapons out with them. The repair system then began to update and fix the ship, which was nice, if not for all the attention it drew. The few Irkens that had been in this facility now made sure to widen the already large gap between themselves and Zim, or possibly, the more identifiable outsider, the human, and began to bring in reinforcements.

Soldiers, guards, garrisons, security, whatever they were considered, it was only a few sacred moments before they began to spill into the room. Zim and Dib had finished making their way to some sort of access terminal built into the wall of the shipyard by the time about a dozen of these personnel had entered the room. They were making their way over to the group with intent, and both Zim and Dib kind of wanted to avoid learning what that intent was.

"Hack into this?" Zim anxiously reaffirmed, standing in front of the terminal.

"Yeah, and get access to the, whatever you called it," Dib stated.

"The bridge?"

"Yeah, that." Dib picked up one of the weapons he had trained with out of the pile they had created against the wall on the floor, "But first we should, uh, not get killed by these guards?"

"I think so, too." Zim hurriedly reached down and picked up one of the weapons he'd designed and got ready. The two, backs to the wall, took aim at the rapidly approaching army and, whether prepared or not, got ready to fight. Neither of them had even really gathered their bearings, having only been on the Massive for maybe a minute, and yet they would need to defend themselves already. And the other two in the group just stood to the side, with GIR looking around the room with interest, and Minimoose floating up and down with no discernable expression other than perhaps tacit contentedness.

The first few of many came into view, walking around the side of Zim's Voot Cruiser, still busy with its tune-up. And, after a moment of uneasy hesitation, finally validating that, yes, he was going to go through with this, all of this, the whole plan, he pulled the trigger.

It was after that first shot, with a blue ray coming out and striking the soldier like a small explosion, with pink, Irken blood quickly starting to make an appearance, that the station was turned into a mini warzone. The soldiers either hadn't seen the group's weapons or hadn't expected them to fire them, but regardless, wasn't expecting combat. But as soon as the first couple of guards went down, clutching their possibly fatal wounds, they dropped down and gained cover behind the heavy machinery, ships, and computer systems. Hunkering down, they readied their weapons, took aim, and began to retaliate.

Zim and Dib weren't exactly in the best position. Backs against the wall, good— standing there with no cover or protection against projectiles, bad. Zim recognized this as soon as he began getting shot at. He rushed to the side and pulled over some sort of machine on wheels, not unlike some sort of industrial vacuum cleaner or air compressor. Zim just hoped it wouldn't explode upon being shot. Zim and Dib crouched behind it, the both of them barely fitting behind it. Dib tried to usher Minimoose and GIR over, lest they get shot, but they didn't seem to care.

Dib was, to say the least, uneasy about this. He tried not to think about it too much, and tried to rationalize it with the fact that they were trying to kill Zim, destroy Earth, and had destroyed many other planets, yet this was a bit heartless. Brutal. Practice with the weaponry hadn't completely prepared him for this. Nevertheless, it was for survival at this point; there was no way to de-escalate or back down now. So, Dib took in a deep breath, pointed around the side of the machine he was hiding behind, and aimed for anything green.

Multi-colored laser fire zoomed through the vast space in the station, occasionally striking an Irken guard. A bullet of some sort struck Zim's cover, coming too close for comfort. An explosive, similar to a grenade, was thrown towards Zim, only missing by a bit, with Zim's leg being struck with a bit of shrapnel. Dib seemed fine, as did GIR and Minimoose behind them. A Crane was shot, releasing a crate that incapacitated a soldier. A ricocheting ray struck another in their PAK, destroying it— non-fatal, but only for a bit. A blast destroyed the front of Zim's ship. Another nearly destroyed the terminal they aimed to access. A ray struck Zim's foot under the cover, by the wheels. He would be fine.

Perhaps a minute passed, yet it felt like hours. The soldiers had been thinned out, and Zim made a dash to the terminal, quickly trying to hack into it, Dib covering him. It was a nerve-racking ordeal. His back to the action, his vulnerable PAK exposed, relying on Dib, his nemesis. He wanted nothing more than to hunker down again and be comfortable in safety, yet if he was to have a planet to return to, he had to endure it.

Dib continued to aim for the olive complexions of the opposing forces, trying to aim for their legs or arms in an attempt to not kill them. Somehow, he was managing quite well, and was keeping Zim from being shot.

The moment Zim was in, having gained access to the bridge, he turned around and shouted over the warfare, "Got the bridge! Now what?"

Dib turned over for a moment, the adrenaline that coursed through him managing to keep him succinct and smooth, "On my briefcase, there. Connect up the tablet!" Dib pointed with his offhand to the tablet, resting on top of his closed briefcase.

Zim hurriedly obliged, grabbing the device and then springing back to the terminal, using some redundant, non-integral wiring to connect it up to the terminal. After a tense moment, it was done. Confirming so, "Done!"

"Good! Now you take over!" Dib handed Zim the gun he'd been using and then ran over to the terminal. Zim froze for a brief moment before he realized the gravity of the situation and sprung back into action, getting behind the machine again and firing indiscriminately into the army.

Dib turned on and rushed through his tablet, before finally getting to what he hoped would save Earth from destruction. Broadcasting directly into the bridge of the Massive was the live footage of Zim's base, made possible only by the camera he had planted there a few days ago. Clear as day, and verifiably live, was the footage of a very empty base. It was, Dib presumed, the best chance that they had to prove to the Tallest that Zim wasn't on Earth.

Zim finished off the last of the guards that had rushed into the dock, the wave having either been felled or having retreated, the area was clear for now. All that Zim could think, though, was that they clearly sucked— they didn't land a single shot on either him or Dib, despite the fact that there were dozens of soldiers and two of them. And they didn't aim for GIR or Minimoose, who were easy targets. Although, there wasn't really a reason to. Regardless, worse soldiers than he was.

Dib stood there for a silent moment, seeing out of the large hole in the side of the Massive, serving to let the ships access the station, the weapons continue to charge up. The glow, the light that they produced still evident despite him not actually being able to see the weapons from where he was standing. It was tense. On one hand, this was their best chance, and it _was _proof that Zim wasn't in his base. On the other hand, why would they care? Why would the Tallest pay attention to it, take it as fact? Why would they not just assume that Zim was underground and continue anyway? Dib couldn't look away from the continuously brighter glow as he thought the worst, a macabre fascination as he assumed he was about to watch Earth be evaporated before his very eyes. But, after his heart had already skipped several beats, by the time he had already accepted his fate, assuming that the light couldn't get any brighter, that the weapons were as charged as they could be, they stopped. Dib waited for a cautious, nervous moment, and then breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Whether or not his footage had any effect at all, he didn't know. The important part was that Earth was safe.


	10. Carnage

There was mass carnage left in the docking station now. Irken forms strewn about on the floor, and the entire area evacuated and, consequently, silent. The Massive's weaponry had ceased, as could be seen from where Dib was standing. From there, he could also see Earth. It looked like the Massive was slowly pulling away from Earth, everything getting slightly farther away. He could see Zim's house, the city out near the horizon. Those people were safe now, whether they realized it or not.

Dib pulled his eyes away from the view of Earth and retrieved his tablet from the terminal he and Zim had used. He set it back in his briefcase, and he set his gun, still warm, back in the small pile of extra weapons they had brought with them, against the wall by GIR and Minimoose. GIR was seemingly sleeping, with Minimoose sitting or leaning on him, their eyes still open. Dib couldn't begin to contemplate how GIR fell asleep during the two's all-out combat.

Zim was surveying the results of said combat, looking over the bodies and damaged machinery. It was a success, yes, and a brutal one at that, but it pained Zim. Turning some of the finest Irken weaponry against soldiers of his own empire— it wasn't right. Zim knew that it must be done if he was to survive, but he hoped that the killing could be kept to a minimum, with as few casualties dealt to the empire as possible, or else he could end up second-guessing whether this was all worth it in the end.

Zim decided he had seen enough and turned around, facing Dib. He slowly walked back towards the others, limping ever so slightly from the minimal, but surely existent, damage done to his leg during the skirmish. He was planning on bandaging it up in a short moment. "Did you get injured?" Zim asked, getting the attention and a glance from Dib.

"No, I'm good," Dib affirmed.

"Hmph, good. In truth, I don't know enough about human anatomy to heal you in the event you were severely wounded."

"Well, that just fills me with confidence," Dib unconfidently mumbled, sitting down against the wall.

"Only severely!" Zim sat down on some sort of a counter or worktable by the wrecked remains of the Voot Runner. That was going to be a whole mess later.

"That's the only time I'd _need _that."

Zim reached into his PAK. But, as he was starting to pull his hand back out, so as to patch up his leg, he spotted movement at the far entrance. He held his hand steady and stared for a split second. Again, there were guards moving into the station on the other side of the room. "Oh no."

Zim jumped up off of the table and ran, pained, for the others and the weapons. "What's—"

"Get up! There are more!" Zim ushered for GIR and Minimoose to get up, lifting GIR up and into a standing position.

"What?" Dib stood up hurriedly.

"Go! That way!" Zim grabbed some weapons and began heading towards an exit in the wall Dib had been sitting against, not too far away. They could probably get out before the soldiers came upon them.

Dib, without a word, obeyed. GIR and Minimoose were already following Zim. DIB grabbed his briefcase, a weapon or two, leaving behind a few, and began to run. The group was getting shot at as they ran for the nearby exit. Dib, getting a look at them, wasn't exactly sure why they were running as opposed to fighting them— they didn't look any more formidable than the last group— but he continued on anyway.

This entrance, with all four having passed through unscathed, led to a massive sort of atrium. It was a long hallway that extended on for what looked like miles. It was wide and tall, with a second floor clearly visible, with said floor having access by means of a railing. Indeed, there were already several soldiers up there with guns pointed down at them. The walls were grey and metallic, with many bits and fixtures sticking out, giving it a very complicated look. It, all in all, reminded Dib of perhaps a more futuristic shopping mall.

The group came to a stop, taking cover behind a large structure up ahead. It seemed useless, just a massive metal obelisk sticking out of the ground, but it served as good cover for the group as they were attacked from above and ahead.

Zim took a few shots at the soldiers above them, on the other side of the column, and downed a couple. "We need to get out of this hallway or we'll be surrounded," Zim loudly explained, looking back to the docking station, where soldiers were quickly approaching.

Dib looked around, keeping behind cover, as Zim took another attempt to clear the area. "Over there!" Dib shouted over the laser fire, pointing to a small, thin alley that went to the side up ahead.

Zim nodded and turned back. He shot up ahead. A few screams permeated the air. There was a loud thud as a body fell from above and struck the ground. Zim came back behind cover. "Head over there when I start shooting!" Zim pointed to a small statue only a couple of yards away from the alley. Dib nodded.

Zim steeled himself for a second. And he turned around and provided cover fire. Dib took off running. Briefcase and GIR's hand in one hand, weapons in his other. A shot ricocheted into the obelisk. Another into a soldier's eye. Zim kept the attention on him. And after an eternity, Dib was behind cover again. Zim stopped, shots striking the pillar. One whizzed by Zim's arm. He shifted position.

Zim saw the soldiers nearly at the exit in the dock. He looked over to Dib, who was shooting from behind cover now. Zim was a bit surprised, but took the opportunity, hastily running towards Dib.

Dib hesitated for a moment, seeing Zim out of the corner of his eye, but resumed quickly. A ray just barely missed Dib's hand. He waited for another second or so until Zim was behind cover before he withdrew. Dib let out a stressed exhale.

There wasn't much time before they were fighting on all fronts. Zim signalled for Dib to run for the alley, and Zim started firing. Dib again sprinted with GIR and Minimoose with him. Zim stood up and sped towards the alley behind him. The reinforcements were filing into the atrium. The group was in the alley.

It was small, only allowing for single-file travel. The alley was dark too, with only dim light from above; well above. It was tall, with averagely bright lights above, but coming from the ceiling of this bizarre passageway. It was a long hall which Dib couldn't see the end of. Good thing was, it allowed for Zim to cover himself easily.

Dib moved ahead with GIR behind, Minimoose behind him, and Zim, at the back, stepping backward blindly, shooting the soldiers that started moving in towards the alley. It was after a few had been shot that they cautiously withdrew and thought about a different strategy. Then, Zim sped up, as best he could, moving backward with the confidence that his allies could guide him.

"Going right," Dib quietly, but firmly, directed. Zim thought for a quick second, and followed the direction, backward, as he approached a sort of intersection. He then used the corner as cover, quickly glancing aside and seeing the others going ahead. Zim didn't have to pull the trigger; the mere aiming of the gun down the narrow hall was enough to prevent intrusion.

Dib stopped, maybe a tad less than a hundred feet away, and shouted, not too loud, to Zim, "In here!" He gestured to some sort of chute built into the wall. Minimoose looked to have already gone down it, and GIR was in the process of it. Zim wasn't entirely sure about said chute, but the alternative was running down the alley until it ended. And Dib surely would check that it was safe before thrusting the both of them down it. So, Zim waited for Dib to start going down it, then ran for it.

The chances of the soldiers making it all the way down the hall and around the corner to shoot at Zim before he made it in the chute were extremely slim, yet it was still the longest few fifteen or so seconds of Zim's life. But, powering through the leg pain and the exhaustion of all the fighting, his moral qualms and personal dilemmas were buried under the pressure of the moment. It was a race. And it was one Zim won. He scrambled into the chute, not bothering to even look where it would take him, and he fell into the unknown.


	11. Sweep

The chute led into a large but compact room, one with rather short ceilings. Its walls were again metal and had nearly every open space occupied by some sort of widget, gauge, monitor, or valve. There was a present hum of machinery and moving parts, and the occasional sound of welding or hammering. Robotic arms and pieces of heavy machinery hung from the ceiling, stretched up from the floor, and extended out from the walls, making the room feel something like a maze. And from gaps between machines in the ceiling was bright white lighting, lighting that reminded Dib of fluorescent lights back on Earth. Lying on his back, it hurt to stare up at them. He stood up, having certainly bruised himself. The drop had been long enough to hurt, but was only a few feet. Dib stepped to the side and swept his gaze around the room. Just in time too, as Zim came falling down, nearly but not quite landing on his feet.

Zim stood up with effort and a grunt. He looked around hurriedly, and quickly came to the same conclusion as Dib— they were alone in here. It was devoid of Irken life, except for Zim. With that, he breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on the floor against a bin. Dib's back was to him as he watched the machinery work, creating some sort of small device. It was fascinating, getting the opportunity to watch alien technology be created. GIR seemed to agree, running over to a machine, asking question after question about, before losing interest and moving on to another one. Dib stopped paying attention to the technology and turned to watch GIR. It was almost cute, despite Dib knowing that it was an advanced robot that of course worked to take over the world.

Dib saw Zim out of the corner of his eye, sweeping his hand down the length of his leg in steps, pulling it back pink after sweeping over the side of his thigh. From there, the injury was examined for a moment, and after a few seconds, Zim was bandaging up his leg; his leg which had probably been even more hurt by his faulty landing from the chute. Dib was interested and walked over, sitting down a couple feet away from Zim, facing the ever-energetic GIR.

Zim wrapped the bandages around the wound. It hurt, and falling through a chute onto it didn't help, but it wasn't really a bad injury; not much worse than a scratch in truth. As he slowly wound the fabric around, he watched GIR, woefully innocent and unfit for the present mission. How unequipped he was for what they were doing. And yet, Zim could still feel glad that he was here as he ran around.

Dib watched Zim's medical work with passive curiosity, questions sort of emerging in his mind, fuzzy and peripheral, about Irken anatomy and medicine. He occasionally looked over to GIR when he turned and looked to Zim, when he would point to some machine while vocalizing hundreds of questions. But Dib was merely being distracted by these things. Indeed, though, he wanted to be distracted, as his mind was occupied instead by thoughts and moral qualms about what he'd done and would do. The fighting and the shooting and the killing. And before he could even attempt to resolve an unsatisfactory conclusion to that, his mind was on the more strategic issues. Already, Zim had been wounded, several of his weapons had been lost, and both of them already needed a break. Surely things were only going to get more difficult, and already it was plenty.

But as Zim finished tending to his leg, with a quick adhesive strip holding the gauze in place, and he deposited the bandage roll back into his PAK, the two could take advantage of that break. The empty room, humming with mechanical life, despite being safely uninhabited, allowed the two to simply sit there, let GIR distract them from their own thoughts, and gain a moment of solace before inevitably having to go back into the fray.

But, the time passed, a few minutes of silent recouping being as much as they could realistically get. So, Zim stood up, using his left hand to assist in that as his leg still hurt. Dib now watching, still quiet, Zim retrieved the blueprint he had based much of their plan off of, pulling a device out from his PAK as he walked towards the small weapons pile and tossed his small gun into it, and he walked back over towards Dib. He sat on the edge of the bin now, his legs dangling, and he opened it up. Dib stood and stood next to him, looking over it himself.

Zim looked around the map, sweeping his finger along the screen, moving from looking at the docking station to the room they were in now. He pointed at what looked to be where they were, although it was hard to tell. "Here," Zim mumbled, "is us. We need to get to here." Zim tapped on another room a bit of a distance away— still a long way away from the front of the ship. "From there, we should easily be able to get to the bridge and to the Tallest." He zoomed out of this a bit. "Computer."

And from somewhere on or near Zim, the computer dutifully, yet begrudgingly, responded, "What?"

"Calculate the fastest route from here to the room selected on the blueprint."

"Ugh. Fine." A blue path appeared on the map. "You could have do that yourself."

"Yes, but you did it faster. Not _that _much faster than the fantastic Zim, but— oh, this isn't going to work. This doesn't make any sense. Terrible work."

"Do it yourself." The banter was nearly a return to normalcy in the foreign environment.

"I'm going to have to, thanks to you!" Zim turned to Dib. "Can you believe that?"

Dib looked at the map, made incomprehensible with the Irken language and a fractal-like design, and shrugged. Zim waved Dib's statement off and returned to the map. He used his finger to drag parts of the line around, creating a line that snaked around different parts of the map but arriving at the same place. "Pass through here, use this as a shortcut, take advantage of that, and end up there," Zim thought aloud. "And there." Zim angled the blueprint towards Dib some. "Here, look at this."

"So," Dib looked it over, the line on the map a bit more squiggly than before, "where are we gonna go?"

Zim looked back at the blueprint, back to the clueless Dib, and sighed. "From here, we'll take a shortcut through a long repair hallway back towards another main hallway and pass through here," Zim pointed to a relatively large room on the map, "hopefully without combat. And that leads us to a transportation system which we'll hijack. It'll stop at another hall, and from there it's a straight path to the teleporter room." Zim lowered the map a bit. "Simple."

"You think so?" Dib wondered, not even sure whether that was a ridiculous notion or a possibly true one.

"I know so, Dib-stink," Zim smirked. Dib smiled weakly; Zim's nearly playful, confident demeanor served to make Dib feel a bit more at ease with the current scenario. Zim was usually overconfident, although Dib had now seen him absorbed in self-doubt. But having a rundown of the plan from a no longer solemn Zim, his wisecracks, and GIR, only a couple feet away, looking at Zim with his face showing only innocent happiness and admiration— in that moment, Dib could feel that perhaps everything would work out. Minimoose floated over Dib's shoulder from behind, and he chuckled. With a nod, he let Zim know that he was good.

Dib and Zim's break was quickly approaching its end, but the two felt just about fine with that. They'd obviously prefer to stop there, with the fighting stopping as well, but they had recovered and their efforts would surely have redoubled, and they were ready for whatever would be thrown their way.


	12. Monolithic

"Have you got everything?" Zim asked, not looking up from the blueprint.

"How far is the teleporter room?" Dib wondered, not answering Zim's question.

"Eh?" Then, dragging his finger along the screen, "Uh, what unit of measurement?"

"...Miles?"

"A little under four."

"Oh, jeez. Yeah, got everything," Dib said as he dropped two guns he was holding, keeping his briefcase and a small gun in his other hand.

Zim looked up and scowled. With a grumble, he walked over and picked up one of the two, the smaller of the two, and placed in his PAK. The other, he left sitting on the floor before he approached a thin, but rather tall, door in the corner of the room. "Dib! Come forth!" He stopped, standing dramatically, and motioning vaguely towards himself.

"Yeah, I'm coming." Dib followed and Zim turned and continued towards the futuristic door, looking much like a slender airlock of some kind. And with a quick bit of typing on a, to Dib, indecipherable keyboard to the right of the door, it opened.

Past the threshold was a strange-looking hallway, one that was unique, even compared to the architecture aboard the Massive. The hallway was tall, perhaps six or seven meters high, with the ceiling being nearly impossible to even detect, giving it a feeling of near infiniteness. That was due to the darkness. There was barely any lighting here in this hall, with only dim red lights on the walls every so often. They were made of something similar to concrete, looking grey, drab, and solid. These walls sloped outward noticeably, meaning that the ceiling was wider than the floor was. And the floor wasn't particularly wide, being only wide enough for single-file travel. The hall erratically zig-zagged forward for as far as Dib could see.

"About three miles through here and we'll be at the next main hallway." Zim noted, blueprint still in hand as he began to march forward, "Should be peaceful."

Dib wasn't sure about the idea of hiking through a monolithic repair hallway, but if it was supposed to be without fighting, then maybe he could agree to it. But, before he could decide whether to object or go ahead, Zim was already getting far ahead, with GIR and Minimoose behind him. So, hurriedly and somewhat begrudgingly, he followed along.

Initially, everyone was rather quiet. GIR was intrigued by the surrounding, regardless of how boring and vaguely threatening Dib found them, and was surprisingly quiet. Minimoose was… well, Minimoose, as Dib concluded. And Zim and Dib were both quiet in anticipation of reaching the end, despite both of them reasonably knowing that they wouldn't be at the tunnel's end for at least an hour, probably more. Neither really thought about or acknowledged this cognitive dissonance, which both of them possessed, and instead continued to expect the journey's end and continued walking. Dib had his gun in hand, ready for potential threats, and Zim had his head buried in his map, guiding the group along the confusing, winding, and web-like tunnels.

It was after maybe twenty-five, thirty minutes that conversation began. All adrenaline that Dib had, and whatever the Irken equivalent of adrenaline Zim had, had subsided from the previous encounters, and, as there was clearly no present threat of ambush or attack, the two began to talk to fill the empty air. And perhaps surprisingly, for the time being, GIR didn't.

"It was necessary, but I think it brought attention to us," Zim stated.

"Well, that was kinda the point, wasn't it?" Dib countered.

"The point was to show that we weren't on Earth, but by hacking into that terminal, we let them know where we were."

"Are you saying we shouldn't have done it?"

"No, it did what you wanted it to do. All I'm saying is that by doing that, we have to be extra careful now."

"How so?"

"Well," Zim started typing onto the screen of the blueprint with one hand, holding it with the other, "the Tallest could easily have identified where the intrusion was, and from there, they could start monitoring cameras, or assigning more guards."

"Cameras? I haven't seen cameras." Pause. "Are there cameras in here?" Dib looked up to the ceiling with anxiety.

"Not in here." Zim sort of hesitated for a brief moment. "Hopefully not in the last room, either," he muttered under his breath. He quickly typed on the screen. After a second reading it, he let out a sigh of relief. "No, there weren't."

"...Wouldn't the Tallest know where we were based on all of the dead guards and fighting?" Dib pondered.

"Uh, yeah." Zim looked up from the screen. Then back down. "But not immediately. Not like what we did." Zim glanced up, and silently and without signalling took the right path upon reaching a small branch in the passageway. GIR and Minimoose behind him followed.

"But you said there were cameras! Couldn't they use those?"

"They wouldn't be monitoring them so heavily. Probably at all. Well, even then, _they're_ probably not watching the cameras."

"Well, do you think that we'll be fine, even with them knowing where we are?"

"...It won't be easy." Zim had to admit that much. Here, in this hidden corridor, it would be easy; just get from one point to another. But once they got back under the gaze of cameras and within shooting range, it wouldn't be.

There were a few minutes of silence, the conversation having ended and neither having anything more to say for the time being. And it was around then that GIR began to pipe up. Him asking if they were there yet was annoying. But he also served to keep the group somewhat entertained during the long trek. Dib hadn't appreciated GIR before, especially with him serving Zim, but here, he did. If nothing less, he was at least a much needed comic relief to the situation they had gotten themselves into. And Zim could forgive GIR for sneaking into the Voot Cruiser and coming with them. As long as he didn't get hurt, or cause Zim to get hurt, maybe he wouldn't be in trouble. Probably. He couldn't really stay mad at GIR.

But all said, it took about an hour and a half until they reached the tunnel's end. As they neared it, the two got silent, readied their weapons, and carefully closed the gap. At the end was door more or less identical to the one that they had used to enter the repair tunnel. Zim took one last glance at his blueprint, double-checking the path they were going to go; once they were out in the main hall he most likely wouldn't have an opportunity to check. And, standing at the side, having received a nod from Dib, typed into the keyboard, and the door began to open.

Within the bridge of the Massive, the Tallest were preparing, or more often, directing for someone else to prepare, for Zim. He had _voluntarily_ boarded the Massive? He was doomed. Beamed in front of their eyes, where hails or communications were broadcasted, plenty of camera feeds, maps, and other information were being displayed; a large-scale operation dedicated to destroying Zim. It was more work than the Tallest had done in many years, but it was necessary for the survival of the Irken Empire, as well as their _own_ survival.

A worker, specifically a navigator who had been directed to watch camera feeds of interest— they weren't really navigating anywhere anyway— pointed out Zim opening the repair hallway, and he projected the feed up into the amalgam of information, superseding the feed that had been displaying some unrelated camera feed. The Tallest looked closely, burying their hatred of Zim in that specific moment in order to watch what he was doing and what was happening there. But ceasing to bury it any longer, Red soon stood up straight with an "Ugh."

The navigator who spotted Zim spoke, "My Tallest, what are your orders?"

"Well, we should have an ambush," Purple stated.

"Ooh, I like that. Yeah. Where are they going?" Red agreed.

"I, uh, don't know." the navigator admitted, pausing to watch the footage further and think before speaking up again, "But, given the context, I assume that he's hea—"

"I bet he's gonna go in here," Purple interrupted, pointing at a room on the map, updating live with soldier and camera positions, which was situated about fifty meters down the main hallway from where they were then. It was a large room. Not even quite a room, however. It was more a large open space that happened to contain many other open rooms, something approaching businesses in a shopping mall, to an untrained human eye. It had no strategic importance, even Purple could see that, but it had many other entrances and exits and could be used as a way to access many different areas.

"What? Why would he go over there? Someone like Zim would go over here," Red disagreed, pointing to another room the opposite direction down the hallway. It was a heavily guarded and rather confined room that comprised part of the ship's overall security. This room held weaponry for guards and soldiers in that section of the ship. The room led nowhere in particular, however; there was only the one entrance you could access from the outside. But, of course, that weaponry could serve to bolster Zim's efforts to… Well, the Tallest weren't _exactly_ sure what Zim planned to do, but it was obviously nothing good.

"What? He'd just get killed by soldiers! That doesn't make any sense!" Purple refuted.

"So? Zim doesn't make any sense."

"That's why he'd go over here!" Purple pointed to the map, "It's not important at all to his, uh, plan, so he'd go there!"

"That's stupid."

"You're stupid!"

Right before Red was about to continue the chain, the navigator hesitantly piped up. "My Tallest— which room do we fortify? There's only enough time to get soldiers stationed in one. If you still, um, want to ambush him, that is."

"Of course we still want to ambush! Purple's idea of ambushing was perfect!" Red shouted.

"Thanks, sweetheart," Purple said quietly and offhandedly.

"Of course." Red quickly replied. "Anyway, we should reinforce the armory."

"What? No!"

"Um," the navigator quickly sputtered out in order to get a word in, "it would seem that they're heading that way." The navigator pointed out the camera footage, where they were heading towards the open space; the region Purple argued for.

"Ha! See? I was right," Purple smirked.

"Accidentally!" Red forcefully added. With a light sigh, "Reinforce that region then. Quickly." Then, somewhat annoyed, "Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"Yeah, come on!" Purple shouted as the navigator hurriedly typed in commands.

"Uh, my apologies, my Tallest," the navigator acquiesced.

And in that area, in the major hallway that the repair hallway linked Zim and his group to, there were already problems arising for them. Like Zim and Dib and both feared in the back of their minds, the area was guarded, and as Zim could see, it was also watched by cameras. With Zim's plan, the path that he was leading everyone along, they would take a left, continue down the hall for a bit, having to use every opportunity for cover they could, and fight their way down to a large room. An open space, which Zim could pass through in order to gain access to some of the ship's transportation means. It was the fastest and easiest route.


	13. Trauma

Zim, half-crouched, hurried towards cover a few meters away, gun in hand. It was a sort of ledge, about six inches thick, of a bevelled bit of metal that seemingly randomly jutted up out of the floor. Sitting behind it for a moment, with everything staying calm, he turned to the others, sitting behind a different bit of cover, and gave them the signal to follow. Zim was a bit surprised; there didn't seem to be any soldiers in the hallway. He still jumped from cover to cover, just in case, but it seemed to be just cautious, not necessary.

Nevertheless, they approached a large doorway, which Zim's map was to guide them through. The door was closed, but Zim could easily have it opened. He was sure there would be plenty of Irkens behind it, but he thought he knew a way he could sneak himself and the human past the civilians and to the next area. Still cautious, but less so, Zim got to and stopped in front of the door and the terminal at its side. Dib was at the side, watching out as Zim typed, for any signs of danger.

Zim easily cracked the security of this door. Either it was barely secured or he was getting good at this. Probably the latter. And with the quick tap of a large key, the door shot open. Peeking in, Zim saw that it looked like the area was more or less clear. He took a moment, carefully looking in, to plan out where they would go. They would pass through a few specific areas and then they would be at the other side of the space, and from there it was a short walk to the next location. Easy. Zim turned back to Dib, and with a few quick whispers, the two were ready to rush through.

The area was large. There were several other entryways into it, the rest of which were open already. It seemed to be maybe fifty meters from where Zim was to the door on the opposite side of the room. But to the side, it seemed to stretch on for much longer. Hundreds of meters, it would seem. And the room itself was busy, teeming with Irken life. They sat at tables, eating; they had conversations in groups; they walked about, from place to place. It was a very interesting place, and Dib just wished he could stay for a moment and watch— study the alien culture. But, Zim started to go ahead, and Dib followed.

The group quickly approached some sort of service tunnel, only a couple meters into the room, that stretched most of the distance they needed to cross. But, shortly after entering, they were noticed. And a wave was sent through the Irkens in the room, with almost all of them turned, in stunned silence, to look at not only Zim, but also the human on the ship. And Dib noticed this first, stopping Zim. He also saw the attention, and within moments, there was something of a panic. And it was only a few moments after that that gunfire broke out.

Irkens got behind allied soldiers. Zim hurried into the tunnel, grabbing Dib. GIR and Minimoose followed. Many non-soldier Irkens assisted with the attack as best they could. Others left the area entirely. Zim hastily took aim, and Dib struggled to get in a good position to fire back. Zim struck a guard in the shoulder and they collapsed. A table was flipped on its side, soldiers using it for cover. A civilian tended to the wounded guard. Zim shot the hand of another, and they dropped their weapon. Dib shot for one of the combatants, missed, and struck the table.

To the Tallest, their plan was working immensely. Zim and Dib were extremely outnumbered, and with the attitude the civilians had, assisting their soldiers, there was little chance for Zim to succeed. In fact, they hadn't even activated the security system yet. And with a command, a worker pressed a button that did just that.

And back where Zim was, something approximating wall turrets began to pop out from the ceiling. They descended and automatically began to assault Zim when he popped his head out to shoot. He pulled back behind the wall as soon as possible, and with quickened breath, couldn't stick his head back out to shoot; he would be killed if he tried. There didn't seem to be much that he, or Dib, could do. He sat there and tried to quickly think up some way to get around the obstacles he now found in his way, but he wasn't getting anywhere. It was then, running through his mind for some solution, distracted, that what looked to be a grenade rolled up not too far away from him. Three meters, perhaps. His antennae peaked, he stumbled back, dropping his gun, and floundered into GIR, sat against the wall farther from the grenade. His hand was up in front of his face when it finally exploded.

Dib turned when he heard, no, _felt,_ the blast, and saw, in the thin, dissipating smoke and pink mist, Zim haphazardly against the wall, GIR behind his lower back. Dib rushed over and looked over Zim. Zim returned Dib's glance, coughing smoke and wincing. His left antenna and hand were brutalized— destroyed— and his right hand clutched his core. Dib panicked. Was there shrapnel? Was his hand gonna be alright? Was Zim gonna die?

Zim, frazzled and in pain, knew at some instinctual level that he had to hurry. Not only because he was bleeding, but also because the Irken soldiers would be advancing if they didn't fight back. He started to sit up, and a strong pain swelled in his middle, and he fell back onto GIR, who was concerned, but still stayed where he was. Zim wasn't in a condition to do anything more than try to patch up his hand, which hurt surprisingly little. But Zim knew the pain would grow as time went on, as he calmed. His antenna throbbed with pain. A sharp, raw pain that came in waves was centered at where his antenna _had_ been.

"Are— are you okay?" Dib finally managed.

"S—" a sudden wave of pain quieted Zim for a moment, "Sure. Go shoot." That was as verbose as he could be right now.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." He sort of gasped.

Dib begrudgingly left the casualty and leaned around the corner, clearly not having learned anything from Zim trying to do that. He was only a couple of centimeters from having a chunk blown out of his head. But he saw that, as Zim was internally fearing, the soldiers were closing in. Dib looked over to Zim, his own heart racing, and saw him breathing in a tense, almost rhythmic sort of way. And beside Zim, a bit behind him, were some of the other weapons. Including one of those ones Dib had called dangerous— the EMPs. There were a few of them laying there. Now was as good a time as any to go ahead and try them out.

"How do I use this?" Dib hurriedly asked, carefully holding up one of the small devices.

Zim held out his hand. "Here." Dib handed the device to Zim. He, deliberately, messed with it for a moment before handing it back. "Throw it."

Dib did so. He went back to the corner and threw the EMP as hard as he could. A ray burned a hole in the side of his jacket, only hitting Dib barely, little more than a bad scrape. Dib retreated with one hand placed on his new mild injury, and he waited with bated breath.

Zim was in immense pain. His hand was a bloody mess— one that he wouldn't be able to come close to fixing until he was back at his base. For now, it was a matter of stopping the bleeding, which was creating a growing pink puddle. And while his antenna wasn't bleeding nearly as much, it hurt so much more. They were sensitive to begin with, and now they were gored. Or severed. He hadn't a chance to properly check. GIR, behind him, was quietly asking what was wrong, but Zim was in no position to reply. Although, when Zim was, he would have to thank him for being helpful; he was a somewhat calming warmth as Zim leaned against him.

But he was feeling worse with the blood loss. Thirst and anxiety, suddenly so— a bad sign indeed. That was shock. Or the beginnings of it, at least. He had to stem bleeding or he soon wouldn't be in any condition to treat himself, and the human couldn't do that for him. So, speeding up and contemplating cutting corners, he cleaned and bandaged up his hand. Zim would need to take fewer injuries next time.

When Dib heard gunshots give way to an overwhelming silence, he was confused at first. But looking around the corner, quickly and nervously, he saw the security system disabled and the soldiers' weapons utterly unresponsive. Most immediately seemed to be on the verge of panicking. The civilians were past that point. Dib checked if his gun still worked, shooting the floor. And it did. He had stopped the soldiers! Debilitated them, even. Except for the ones far from the blast, who began to cover for their defenseless comrades.

Dib ducked back behind cover. He turned to Zim. "I think we should go." Then, seeing Zim still gritting his teeth, "Do you think you can get up?"

Zim pulled tight what he had wrapped around his half-pulverized hand and winced. And with the bandages in place, he put everything back in his PAK, nodded, and started to try and pull himself up to his feet. GIR pushing from behind, he clumsily struggled and groaned, eventually leaning against the wall, only somewhat standing.

"Come on, let me help you," Dib held out his hand. Zim, with a moment of hesitation, one that Zim felt he couldn't take lest the two of them get assaulted, took Dib's hand. Dib pulled Zim, and GIR also tried to help, and Zim was on his feet. Dib reached down and handed Zim the gun he'd dropped. "Which way now?" Dib asked.

Zim, limping some, but ultimately still rather brisk, lead the way down the tunnel. Dib was behind, watching out for anyone coming and following them. It wasn't long, although it felt like forever in the midst of all of the anxiety, until they reached the end of the dim and narrow service tunnel. With the lack of assailants coming in from the now far end, Dib was increasingly racked by nervous anticipation. But, Zim continued to lead them ahead.

The group would have to pass from one bit of cover to the next, with a small gap in the way— one that would not only alert the soldiers to their intentions, but would also leave them open to gunfire. From the tunnel to running behind some kind of shop. Zim gathered up his strength, turned to Dib, GIR, and Minimoose, and with a short remark, no louder than a whisper, asked if they were ready. It would be a dash to the finish. They would get through the doors, and Zim would lock them down, essentially barricading them. Then they would have to get onto the train or monorail or whatever it was. Dib nodded, ready to follow through, with adrenaline amping him up and making him feel like not unlike an action movie hero. Zim began, and upon his foot touching the floor again, Dib was rushing forward, too.

Dib heard the gunfire strike the right wall behind him as he ran. Zim was keeping up, despite his injuries. Dib had GIR in his arm, with his briefcase sitting on top of him, with GIR happily holding onto it to keep it from falling as he ran, and with his free hand he had a gun ready. And it came in handy as they reached the end and found a new squadron standing by the doors they hoped to run through. They stopped, dropped back behind cover, and Dib fired into the crowd, with the intention to shock and disperse, but not really to kill— he hadn't wanted to kill any of these guys inherently.

Zim tossed something into the crowd. Given what happened last time something was thrown at them, many of the guards got out of the way. Zim took this opportunity to shoot those who didn't move. It was after only a moment of their organization having been decimated and their numbers thinned that they realized that all that had been thrown into the crowd was a roll of bandages. But, it had worked. While troops moved from farther back in the room to reinforce the blockade on the door, a path was carved, and Zim and Dib rushed to get through it and out of the room.

Getting past, Dib rather harshly plopped GIR onto the ground and covered for Zim. Zim went for the door's controls and hastily typed, even as his hand throbbed, as Minimoose floated nearly carelessly through. Zim was crouched to the side behind the terminal as gunfire poured through and guards rushed for the door. Dib returned fire and tried to keep Zim typing. GIR was taking protecting the briefcase very seriously, guarding it wholeheartedly. Dib was, as Zim took his time, getting nervous. He couldn't manage this forever. And he hadn't even checked if there was anyone behind him. It wasn't until there was the loud crunch of the door closing on some poor guy's arm and the sound of gunfire striking the metal that Dib relaxed, although not before looking over his shoulder to see a short, but most importantly, empty, hallway. Now it was just a matter of completely disabling the door's controls.


	14. Empathetic

**A/N: Apologies, forgot to upload here yesterday. Was busy and didn't have access to my computer long enough to upload both here and Ao3. Happy belated Valentine's Day!**

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And with a final bash, his code was essentially locked in for good, as the terminal itself was made inaccessible. With a sigh, Zim relaxed, the sound of Irken soldiers on the opposite side of the door no longer concerning. With a grunt, he managed to stand up onto his feet, although Dib tried to step over and help. The action giving way to calm and quiet, the group could finally take a breath. That did, however, mean that Zim was starting to feel his injuries even more, so he was eager to get going to the transportation system. So, with a brightly lit hallway in front of them, its end clearly visible, they began down it.

This hall was starkly opposed to the rest of the Massive and to the whole atmosphere of Irken architecture or to Irken aesthetics. It was warmer than expected, pleasantly so, in fact. The light itself was of a warmer quality, looking more like daylight that the cool, near-incandescent Dib was starting to get used to. The walls were white and the hall itself was rather wide. Dib, unsure why this hallway was different, was uncomfortably comfortable. Zim didn't particularly like it, comfortably uncomfortable.

And at the end were doors, similar looking to sliding doors back on Earth. Two of them, glass embedded in them that allowed one to look through it, and made out of some sort of metal, although it looked just as white as the walls. Next to it was a button, not unlike an elevator call button. There was what looked to be a sleek train behind the doors; one that was white and embroidered with the Irken insignia.

Zim reached over and pressed the small button only a few centimeters to the side of the door. Near immediately, the doors slid to the sides with a whooshing sound, and Zim began to limp in. After a moment, watching Zim and ultimately concluding that Zim knew what he was doing, Dib followed. GIR was struggling to carry Dib's briefcase; he was leaning back and holding it on top of himself, using his upper half as a sort of surface for it to sit on. Dib had offered to take it back, but GIR was excited to defend it, as Dib had quietly instructed only a few minutes ago, so Dib dropped it and let him go ahead with it— it was cute, after all. And finally, without a sound or much of an initiative, Minimoose floated past the doors. After a second, the doors clicked closed, and Zim stayed stood right by them.

Zim felt around against the wall of the train, as Dib elected to call it, unless Zim gave him its actual name, of course. It was devoid of life other than themselves and was extremely clean and sleek. Zim's hand, the uninjured one, got hold of a small divot, from which Zim flipped out a hidden terminal, in one swift, smooth motion. Dib watched on, intrigued, as Zim typed on it, one-handed. GIR struggled to pull himself up onto a seat against the walls of the train as he held onto the briefcase. Dib grabbed the briefcase, which GIR held onto, and pulled him up, plopping hom gently down on the seat. There, he sat, swinging his legs. Dib looked up from GIR sitting happily when the train started to move— fast. Zim was typing furiously, and after he slammed one final key, the train slowed down immensely, hardly feeling like it was moving now. With that, Zim limped over to the seat Dib and GIR were sitting at and collapsed into it.

"What was all that for?" Dib asked after a silent moment.

"Got it moving," Zim reached into his PAK, "slowed it down," he pulled out some sort of gadget, "and isolated it."

"Why'd you slow it down? And what do you mean by 'isolating?'"

"Slowing it down gives me more time to repair myself. And to take a moment before more fighting." Zim felt around in his PAK some more. "And I isolated it, as in, there's no way for someone, for example, in the bridge, to interfere with where we're going or how fast."

"How long until we arrive?"

"Um, slightly more than half of an hour." Zim pulled his hand back. "Do you have a large strip of fabric or a small object that won't break if immense pressure is put on it?"

"Uh," Dib thought. "no? I don't think so. Why?"

Zim sighed. "It would have been helpful for this." Zim quickly began to undo the bandages he had wrapped onto his damaged hand as he kept a firm grip on the device he just got with his other hand. Dib got a good look at it. He wished he hadn't. It wasn't red and gory as it might be if a human was in the same position, but pink and gory wasn't much better. The base of what Dib would call a thumb was immensely impacted, with its insides exposed and, for lack of a better, less uncomfortable word, scrambled. Other parts of the hand had received similar treatment, with burns and skin simply exploded off. His thumb even seemed to have bone, or something analogous to it, exposed at the tip. It was a gruesome sight, indeed.

Zim struggled to keep from instinctively tightening his grip in the injured hand, and kept it relaxed as he finished taking off the bandages. When done, his right hand passed the device to the left, and it held it rather firmly; certainly firm for a hand which could potentially have its insides simply fall out. Dib shuddered and looked away, done with the viscera and whatnot for the time being. He didn't think seeing his enemy's insides would be such a problem.

"Uh, so," Dib looked to Minimoose bouncing around from wall to wall, slowly, "what are you doing right now? With the, um, hand?"

"Well," Zim grunted, pained, "bandages are a temporary solution. So is this, but less so. I won't be able to heal completely until I'm back at my base. So for now—" Zim strained and muttered something in Irken, nearly hissing the words out. "For now, this will suffice."

One of the PAK's legs extended out and its end was at Zim's damaged hand. Dib still wasn't looking, and only saw it out of the corner of his eye. "What's happening now?" Dib asked.

"Same thing."

The PAK arm sounded nearly like it was welding something, and Zim was tensing up and groaned roughly, very nearly stomping his foot. Dib saw his free hand fervently gripping the seat in vain. "Did you want fabric or whatever so you could squeeze it in your hand?"

"Yes," Zim strained.

"Um," Dib debated what he had thought just a moment ago. Zim was clearly in extreme pain, and while squeezing the heck out of something wouldn't exactly make it go away, it could help. And Dib didn't like seeing Zim in such pain… because Dib would be relying on him during the fights. He was an alien— one who wanted world domination at that. Dib couldn't have empathy for someone like that. But to assist him through his operation, Dib could— "here." Dib offered his own hand.

Zim looked at Dib's hand. Then back at his own disfigured one. "I'm okay. I have painkillers in the PAK."

Dib rescinded his hand with a quiet huff. Why did he bother? "Well, why aren't you using them?"

"Can't right now." Dib looked away as Zim started to tinker with his hand in a way that made Dib squeamish.

"Why's that?" Dib saw Minimoose hovering beside GIR as he sat politely. They were squeaking and GIR was watching as if he was paying attention to a conversation.

"It would interfere with—" Zim practically shouted several sentences worth of Irken out as a stomach-turning squelching noise came from his hand.

"Are you alright?" Dib asked, concerned.

"I will be okay." Zim dodged the question.

"Well, what about right now? Do you need me to do something?"

"No. I don't need help." Zim was being obstinate. But as Zim continued to patch up his hand, and later his antenna, he and Dib talked about what had happened and how Zim's injuries felt— mainly out of Dib's curiosity. But when it was all said and done, with Zim having completed his patch jobs, which, Dib had to say, were very advanced and realistic for current human standards, he flipped a switch or something inside of his PAK and it started administering the aforementioned painkillers. He relaxed visibly, and his pained, withheld speech transformed into his normal amount of verbosity.

After ten minutes, Zim seemed, somehow, perfectly fine. Sure, his lower arm was a slightly different hue and texture than the rest of his arm, his antenna was simply patched over, and there was a puddle of Irken blood between his feet, not to mention the several other puddles elsewhere in the Massive and the trail he created walking in here, but he was fine. He probably needed more blood inside of him, but he would have to make do for now.

Dib watched GIR happily run back and forth on the empty vessel, Dib having convinced GIR to let Dib hold on to the briefcase while he played. It reminded him of very young children giving their parents their juicebox or their toy as they went out and played on the playground. GIR was certainly enjoying the open space and the presence of Zim and Minimoose. Zim, in fact, was watching from the right of Dib, with Dib's head turned away from him. Dib smiled somewhere between a proud parent and someone looking at a cute animal. Zim's smile, much the same, although leaning more towards 'proud parent', gave way to a more thin smile. Then a neutral, concerned look. Then, nearly a frown.

Suddenly breaking the silence, or at least, as silent as something could get with GIR shouting, Zim spoke. "What are we even doing here?" Zim's tone was something approaching… sardonic indignance?

Dib looked over. "...In what sense?"

"I mean, are we— am I going to kill my Tallest?" Zim was concerned.

"That was the plan, I thought?"

"Well, yes. But I don't know if I can."

Dib was taken aback. "They… tried to kill you. They, like, banished you, or whatever. They nearly destroyed Earth! Twice! They're conquering the whole universe! "

"Those aren't their faults. It certainly would be easier for them if I wasn't ruining everything for them and for the empire." For a moment, Dib was expecting Zim to go into another self-deprecation fit— one that would not be appreciated right now. "Besides, they're the Tallest! They're my leaders! How could I kill the leaders of my empire and still call myself an Irken?" Zim remembered Miyuki and Spork. Oh, no. "On, um, purpose, that is." Zim paused and looked down at the small blood pool on the ground. In it was a murky, muddled, and dim reflection of himself. "How can I justify that?"

Dib honestly didn't expect that from Zim. From what he'd heard, Zim had destroyed his leaders and immense parts of the Irken Empire several times before. What made this time different? Zim wasn't that complex, was he? "Well, are you still really a part of the Irken Emp—"

"Yes! Of course I am!" Zim interrupted, "I'd do anything for the empire." He looked out into space for a moment, then put his head in his hands. "At least, I think I am. And I think I would."

Dib looked at Zim's form. He'd taken severe damage in his endeavor simply to preserve his own life. His leaders did this to him. And yet, he still couldn't find it in him to kill them. Dib couldn't help but feel pity for him. Within Zim's mind, it was a paradox that, as Dib could start to see, didn't have a good solution. And it wasn't like Zim had been dealt a good hand to begin with. "They'll kill you if you don't kill them first."

"I know. Of course I know that. But do I have the right to do that in the face of Irken leadership?"

"Well, no, but you—"

"You don't understand." Zim sternly declared. "You probably never could."

Dib didn't, not fully. And Zim was probably right; Dib might never completely get it. But he could see what Zim meant. And Dib felt terrible, seeing this all come to the forefront in Zim's mind, his disheveled body hunched over a puddle of his own blood within enemy territory. Dib couldn't help but empathize with him, despite his convictions. "Maybe not. And I guess I can't decide for you. So, I mean, I'll leave it up to you; whatever you decide I guess we'll go with, even if I have my own, uh, opinions."

Zim looked up, seemingly almost confused. Then, with an almost entirely neutral expression, save for the subtle smile that Dib didn't catch, "Alright, Dib human." Maybe Dib could trust Zim. Maybe he wasn't as bad as Dib made him out to be.

The secret terminal Zim had used earlier beeped quietly. Zim got up and walked, no longer seeming to be injured, over to it. Upon flipping it open and looking over it, he said, "We're approaching our destination. Slightly under five minutes until arrival." Zim walked back and sat down.

Dib, preparing for what was to come, urged, "So, tell me what comes next again?" There wasn't much more to travel before they reached the teleporter room, and from there, it would be a clean shot to the bridge and back home. Just a little bit more fighting, surely; the Tallest wouldn't make it easy for them, most likely.

The train arrived, locking into a braked position with the sounds an overworked motherboard made and quiet hissing like a bus coming to a stop. Slotted into its place, the doors opened and the group steeled themselves. Dib and Zim side by side, guns drawn, with GIR and Minimoose, ready to follow and to abide by orders.

The Tallest ought to be afraid of what was coming their way.


	15. Minimoose

Maybe Zim was a bit too cocky; perhaps _he _ought to be afraid of what was coming_ his_ way.

Leaving the train, the group entered another large atrium. It looked pretty much identical to the last one, with a floor or two above them, and central railings giving the above floors access to the lowest, where they were. Initially, it was eerily quiet within the atrium, setting Zim on-edge. They walked with extreme caution, practically sneaking towards the door maybe fifty meters farther down the hall.

Zim was about to count himself simply paranoid and hurry up and get to the door as soon as possible. Then he heard a loud clatter from the floor above. He immediately darted behind cover and pulled Dib behind it as well. It was a sturdy sort of ledge; yet another seemingly useless bit of architecture that some of the Irken rooms were built with.

It was deafeningly quiet. Zim could only hear him and Dib's breathing. Even GIR was silent. Several tense seconds went by as Zim expected the worst.

Dib began to stand up. "What was—" A shot struck the wall behind Dib. He looked to its source and saw maybe hundreds of Irken soldiers, all at the railings. Dib dropped back down as another ray just barely missed his head.

Zim readied his gun, and Dib did the same. Zim leaned around the cover, ready to pick off some of the assailants, only to see just how many there were. They were densely packed together, with every available position occupied. Some leaned over and aimed at down him from his side of the atrium. Zim shot one in a near panic before retreating back to safety. It seemed like half of the Massive's defense was here, in this room, in this moment. It was more than had been in the port they had arrived in, more than there had been in the room before the train, and more than had been in any other part of the Massive up until now. It wasn't good.

"Well?" Dib asked, looking over to Zim. "How's it look out there?"

Zim turned to Dib, breathing loudly and quickly, his heart rate accelerated. He was silent for a moment, as if he'd forgotten how to speak. Then, "Not good."

Red slammed his fist against the top of the monitor. "How did he get past the soldiers!?"

The navigator held his hands up practically in defense. "I d—don't know, my Tallest. They seemed to use some sort of EMP device, from what the officers have said," he hesitated.

Purple looked somewhere between taken aback and moderately distraught. "How many died from that?"

"It looks like about thirty had their PAKs deactivated by the device. They have less than a minute before their lifeclock is up," the navigator stated, a melancholy grimness in his voice.

"Just from the EMP?" Red questioned, audibly unhappy and upset.

"Y—yes," the navigator responded.

"That's brutal," Purple noted, approaching detached.

Red sighed with a near-rage. Purple put his hand on Red's side. Red glanced over at Purple and loosened his shoulders, his posture softening. In a less angry tone, speaking slower and quieter, "Where is he heading?"

"They'll get off, um, here." The navigator pointed to where the train stopped, at the atrium. "It's not far then to the nearby teleporter room."

Purple stiffened up at that. He tried to pull Red closer to him, but Red's slow return to calmness was interrupted. Red raised his voice, "He's almost at a teleporter room!?"

The navigator flinched. "Y—yes. What do you command?"

"Garrison that hall with every soldier that can make it there in time for his arrival. Fill every space with a soldier. Have him shot to pieces."

"Are you s—sure? That could—"

"Don't question me! He's our greatest threat right now, not _anything_ else!" Red pulled back from the terminal he was leaning over, where the navigator was. Red muttered, "Nearly at a teleporter room. I haven't felt like this since what Zim did in Operation Impending Doom I."

Purple pulled Red closer, into a rather passionate sort of hug. Purple was nervous too, of course. But bothering him more was seeing Red so nervous. Red was typically the one who took action, even if he got more excited about all of it. And Purple thought about the Irkens whose PAKs were just… deactivated. Such a terrible way to die. He certainly hoped Zim wouldn't do something like that to him, even if he did get to the bridge.

Red returned the embrace with Purple for a while. Then he stood up straighter. "Get some mechanics or engineers or whatever. I have an idea for something that could help us out." He sounded confident. Instilled within Purple was the same confidence. Pulling apart, they weren't cowardly showing desperation, illegitimizing the leadership they had been given; they were taking up the torch as was expected of them. A plot was being put into action, and they could expect to continue living, without interference from Zim.

Zim ought to be afraid of what was coming his way.

Dib didn't like that Zim, _Zim, _was afraid of what was on the other side of their cover. Zim was the only one he could trust on this stuff! The whole alien combat thing, that was. Dib took a peek himself, as quickly as he could, and understood why Zim was as disheartened as he was. Dib started to rack his mind for what to, looking among the small amount of weaponry and whatnot they still had with them for hints. The knowledge that he and Zim could be shot or blown up at any moment wasn't helping in his thinking.

Zim heard what was being shot at them strike the ledge they hid behind. It was a sturdy and thick thing, with plenty of space and protection, and yet still, Zim was worried that they would just _drill_ through it with how much they were shooting at and around it in any attempt to hit them. But, Zim knew he had to do something or they would certainly be surrounded or killed. He kept his head down and thought. He listened to the sounds of the laser fire, trying to ascertain any sort of pattern or pausing in its midst. It wasn't super successful.

But after maybe twenty seconds, although it felt like half an hour, Zim thought he noticed some sort of pattern. Hedging his bets, he waited for when he thought there would be minimal shooting. Dib watched him as he tensed up and got ready to pop up. He was about to say something to Zim, in fact, when he jumped up out of cover.

He shot nearly aimlessly into the area up by the railings, striking several soldiers. Zim was successful in injuring an alright number of assailants, keeping them from returning fire. Dib saw Zim standing up, an easy target, and, eyes widening, quickly grabbed him, practically jumping over to pull him back down. Indeed, at that very moment, a laser ray struck the wall behind them where it would have killed Zim, striking his head, less than a second before.

"Why'd you do that?" Zim, upset, asked.

"You almost just got shot!" Dib argued, "Don't do that again— you'll get killed."

Zim saw the spot where the ray struck the wall behind them. "Erm, maybe you're right." He leaned against the ledge, his side pressed up against the metal. The soldiers up above continued to fire, and it felt that time was running out. What were they actually going to do? They couldn't just sit there and wait to be surrounded and either shot to death or captured.

Dib tried to shoot around the corner, not even peaking around to see where he was shooting, in a vain attempt to not get shot while picking off the soldiers. Only a few seconds after he began shooting at, as he could only but hope, the Irkens, a laser ray struck the gun he was using, nearly knocking it out of his hand. More importantly, the front of the gun was melted similarly to a melted plastic toy. Dib pulled back behind the ledge and looked at it. With an exasperated sigh, he lightly tossed the gun to the side. That was one less gun in their already dwindling supply.

"What do we do?" Dib wondered, nervous. Dib was starting to doubt if he could make it out of all of this, and he was starting to think that he shouldn't have come along with Zim, perhaps.

"Uh," Zim didn't really know himself, "where are the EMPs?" Zim looked around on the floor.

"Right here." Dib lightly sort of pushed the devices across the floor a few inches towards Zim. "There's only two left."

"Right. It might be time to use them." Zim reached for one. He wrapped his hand around the one closest to him and prepared to lean to the side and toss it as hard as he could, up into the fray. But the moment that he was about to, Minimoose floated over and almost into Zim's face.

Zim lowered his hand. "Minimoose! Now's a bad time!" He tried to get them out of the way. After a moment floundering about, with Dib watching, Minimoose began to float upward, out from behind the cover.

"What's he doing?" Dib asked, looking up at Minimoose. Obviously they couldn't just sit around and watch them, given the whole impending capture, but Dib couldn't help but be extremely curious.

"Get down! You're going to get hurt!" Zim tried to reach up and grab them; alas, he was too short. He rolled the EMP in Dib's direction, back with the other.

Dib was taking after the developing panic in Zim's voice. "Will he be okay if he gets shot?"

Minimoose began to float towards the assailants, and Zim simply couldn't risk popping out from behind cover to see, so he brought himself back down behind the ledge. With another bout of genuine concern that Dib was still not used to, "If they hurt themself, I'm going to kill someone."

There was a lot of loud gunfire that was ringing out from where Minimoose was. If either of them had been there, it sounded like they would have been turned to nothing more than a puddle of viscera. Dib remembered Zim's hand earlier and shuddered. Zim, meanwhile, was nervously debating looking around the corner, gun in hand, his head full of anxiety over what would happen to Minimoose.

But suddenly, there was a loud flash, and it seemed like Dib and Zim were blinded. Zim's antennae, or what was left of them, anyway, hurt terribly. Loud noises and sensitive, already injured antennae don't mix, Zim learned, although he could have assumed that beforehand.

The first thing Zim noticed was Minimoose, unscatehed, floating downward, practically right into his arms. They squeaked, and suddenly Zim was indescribably grateful. He should have never doubted them; Minimoose was the ultimate weapon. after all.

Speaking of squeaking— or not at all, really— Zim could only hear ringing. So it was hard to hear Dib practically screaming about how he thought it was tinnitus. But his vision was returning quickly— faster than Dibs' it would seem. Then, with both the relief Zim felt in seeing Minimoose okay as well as the novelty of temporary blindness and deafness fading away, he suddenly grasped the graveness of the situation. He released Minimoose. Then he reached over and grabbed what weapons he could, stood up, and grabbed a sleeve of the still half-blind Dib, and began to make haste.

"What's going on?" Dib asked, relatively panicked.

"We're going," Zim directed. He stumbled slightly as he ran, feeling mildly disoriented. It was going away, though.

Dib's vision came completely back to him just in time for him to look over and see all of the Irken soldiers unconscious— or, dead. Regardless, they weren't shooting at him. Dib's legs were continuing to run beneath him without Dib even really thinking about it. He was being practically dragged along by Zim, and adrenaline served to help him in feeling the seriousness of the situation.

Zim recalled what he had seen on his map. He had planned on going a slightly longer way, utilizing a sort of elevator to the floor above, which would have probably been the only solution if they were still fighting. But now, time was the only concern— arriving before the soldiers got back up. So, as he ran, his PAK's legs began to extend out. And finally, with a push off of the ground by two of the legs, he was jounced up, and the other two legs grappled onto the railings above. And with a swing, he was thrown up onto the floor above, with Dib being dropped onto the ground beside Zim, through all of it. One leg had snagged GIR and had trebuchet-ed him up onto the above floor, too.

Dib stood up and Zim's mechanical legs retracted back into his PAK. Suddenly, a door to their flank shuddered open, revealing reinforcements. With that, Zim and Dib didn't take any more time to recoup— not yet. With Zim leading, they ran for the teleporter room. It wasn't far, and their hurried reaction saved them from being riddled with gunfire. The door was open, which was a welcome change. The two got inside.

This room was a rather sizable space, moderately larger than a classroom, with the ceiling certainly higher— despite the Irkens' height. Speaking of Irkens, there were some of them in here. A crew of about six or seven were managing a wall of monitors, terminals, and switchboards. Zim took a beat, then dropped what weapons and such he had grabbed and started making a move towards the crew. They immediately got up and started running away. Whether that was due to all of the weaponry they had or just the fact that it was _Zim,_ he didn't know. Regardless, with only mild amounts of roughing up, the crew was brought out of the room. Zim ran over and got the door closed within only a second or two. And the two breathed a sigh of relief.

Zim slouched against the metal door as Dib took a seat in a small chair by the large wall-to-wall control panel. Zim lifted his head up after a moment and saw Dib, admiring the wall. And he saw Minimoose, floating toward the large open area up a few short steps, where the teleportation took place. And he saw the tiny pile of weapons he had dropped to the floor. And he didn't see GIR.

He stood up with a start and turned back towards the door he had had his back to. Outside, he could hear GIR. Zim wasn't sure what he was _saying,_ but he was saying _something._ Zim hurried to open the door again, as Dib started to pay attention to what was going on. The door was opened, and GIR happily and innocently wandered in. Just as Zim started to close the door again, as fast as he could, a soldier appeared from behind the threshold, having used GIR as some sort of Trojan horse.

Zim entered the command just as the soldier entered the room. The door closed behind him with the quiet sounds of hydraulics, and in the soldier's left hand was a large rifle of sorts. And Zim, standing right by the door, was in its sights.


	16. Viscera and Pink Mist

A shot rang out and Dib whipped his head back around to see it. A gun aimed at Zim's head. And a finger pulling the trigger. And a hand winching the gun upwards. And with his breath caught in his throat, Dib saw the shot strike the ceiling above Zim, and not his head. Looking back from the impact site, he saw Zim and the soldier locked in a struggle for survival. Zim was trying to wrench the gun out of the other's hand. The soldier was desperate to kill Zim. GIR waddled past, towards Dib.

The two tumbled onto the ground. Physically wrestling, the two upended each other and rolled around in a fruitless effort to get leverage with which to snatch the gun. Grunting and straining, Zim called out, "Dib! Dib! Shoot him!"

Dib felt as if he had suddenly been pushed into the confrontation. He suddenly realized he could affect the outcome of this fight, even though he was only a few feet away. He reached down and picked up the gun he had been using. Aiming at the soldier's head, he positioned his finger on the trigger. Then, suddenly, the two writhed and Zim's head was suddenly in the way of the gun. Dib pulled the gun back with a jerk. "What are you doing? Hnng, shoot him!" Zim pleaded, continuing to fight.

Dib took aim again, pointing at the assailant's chest. He pulled the trigger, and only a sudden turn as he did resulted in the shot hitting the floor instead of either of the two. "Come one! Just, hmpf, get closer. Pull him off of me! Something!" Zim beseeched. It was desperate.

But Dib couldn't. He couldn't shoot lest he killed Zim instead. He took a step closer only for their fight on the ground to roll violently and go for his legs, nearly knocking him over and into the fray. Dib, in his panic, didn't know what to do; he wasn't good at these split-second decisions. Zim was in danger, but he couldn't figure out how to help Zim in mere moments.

Zim's damaged hand was twisted in a way that nearly hurt just seeing. He let out a scream and suddenly, the soldier's gun was ripped out of Zim's other hand and held up with an outstretched arm. The soldier was on his knees, Zim below him, between his legs. Zim's head poked out in front of the soldier. The soldier laughed, with the gun pointed down at Zim's head. "Think of what the Tallest will say about this, Zim!"

Zim was going to die. His efforts to stop the Tallest were a failure, and a quick shot to the face was going to put an end to his journey into the Massive. Dib might kill the soldier afterward, but he would almost certainly die in facing the entire Irken Empire, alone. GIR would be seized and dismantled. And who knew what the Tallest would do with Minimoose? But regardless, as the soldier's speech seemed to slow down as Zim's thoughts raced through his head in his final moments, he begrudgingly relented to fate. Indeed, he was surprised he had lasted this long, even.

And then— his head practically exploded into a mess of viscera and pink mist. Not Zim's; the soldier's. Dib took the shot when the turning and the wrestling had ended. Zim yelped at the sudden death in front of, or on top of, him, and the body collapsed forward onto him.

When Zim pulled himself out from underneath the body, he saw Dib drop the gun from his hand. With his fist in front of his mouth and his eyes wide, he muttered under his breath. Zim stood up and looked down at the rapidly growing puddle of Irken blood. He turned to Dib, Zim's panic instantly transformed into a frightful and serene silence, having just had his life nearly end, only to be saved at the last second. He wasn't feeling great. Clearly, neither was Dib, who made a strange, nearly squealing sound and retched when Zim pulled a piece of Irken brain off of his shoulder and adjusted his hurt hand in a way that let out an audible crack.

It took a few minutes to calm down. Zim made sure to bash in the door's controls so they wouldn't be interrupted. Dib sat down against the wall, several meters away from the corpse he'd created. Obviously, the two had already killed many while aboard the Massive. But what Dib had just had to do? That was brutal. Necessary. And obscene. Zim needed a couple of minutes, too. He was literally one or two seconds away from having _his_ head look like… that. Zim was no stranger to these sorts of things. But there had been few times his life was on the line like that. So close to ending. None so visceral. None so personal and intimate. And yet, so impersonal at the same time. That soldier was smiling in the face of Zim's soon-to-be death, and was doing it just to serve his Tallest. That was something Zim was familiar with, certainly. And Zim's life was spared. With a human like Dib to thank. Huh, maybe Zim should thank Dib while they sat here, especially given—

Suddenly, there was pounding at the door. The two both flinched, with Dib nearly banging his head against the wall behind him. Obviously, just banging on the reinforced blast doors wasn't going to do much of anything, but it _did_ signify that it was probably time for them to leave; something that Zim communicated by pausing, quietly sighing, and then standing up. Dib, jolted back into reality, watched as Zim approached the controls that the other Irkens had been tending to before the two chased them out.

"Are we going, then?" Dib asked, standing up, the pounding still interjecting.

"We ought to leave," Zim stated.

"Where to?" GIR congregated with the other two by some of the controls.

"The bridge of course. We're gonna end this."

"You're ready then?" He gestured with the gun. "To kill the Tallest?"

Well, was he? Zim chortled slightly and ducked his head down. This was the whole point of this, wasn't it? It wasn't to come all of this way, risk dying, kill his people, just to… give the Tallest a stern warning. There was going to have to be death. A murder— no, an assassination. No. _Two_ of them. The ramifications were unknowable, but definitely intense, and pervasive. What would happen to the Empire? To his fellow Irkens? To the Armada? To _Zim_? Was it better for Zim to die, or for the Tallest? Cause, huh, one of them had to go. They couldn't both exist. Not anymore. Not after Miyuki. Not after Spork. Not after Impending Doom I. Not after Impending Doom II. And certainly not after the Florpus. Peaceful coexistence was nothing but a naïve hope at this point. And, again, perhaps Zim was, indeed, a plague upon the Empire. A defective. The Tallest were his leaders! He had sworn to die for them, not the other way around! An invader that accidentally killed two Tallest would be a disgrace; perhaps completely irredeemable! But one that also purposefully assassinated two more? That was a traitor— a dishonorable enemy of the state. One that might never look at himself the same.

He'd clashed against the same dilemma multiple times now. It continued to rattle through his head, a paradox of instinct, a deep struggle of cognitive dissonance. And it seemed like one that he couldn't solve. He'd just have to pick a side and go ahead with it, because there—

"Zim? You okay?" Dib asked. The sound of banging on the door. He lifted his head up.

"Oh. Yes, let's go ahead," Zim mumbled.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course." Zim began to type into the interface in front of him. It was unfamiliar, but he could figure it out quickly.

"We're gonna kill the Tallest then? You didn't answer."

Zim shouldn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. "Yeah."

"Alright then, cause I don't wanna die cause you decide you don't want to at the last second, okay?"

"Won't happen." Zim thought he might have the controls of this thing down. The system was simple enough. For a powerful teleportation system, at least.

"...Speaking of dying— this thing isn't gonna kill us, is it?" Dib looked over at the platform behind him. The banging on the door stopped.

"What? No. Why would it?"

"I mean, d… nevermind." He looked at the controls. "This all looks amazing, though. I can't wait to see it work!" It was all so complicated. Yet, if it worked, it would really be a feat of engineering and technology.

"Just wait for another moment, stink boy." Dib rolled his eyes at the name. The pounding against the door resumed. Dib flinched slightly. Just when he was about to open his mouth again, Zim stood up and spoke. "We're ready to go."

"It's gonna send us to the bridge? Not, kill us or send us to the wrong place?"

"Of course not. _I_ set it up, didn't I?" Dib sighed. He concluded that Zim had terrible mood swings, apparently.

The group made their way into the platform, marked off with clearly visible lines on the ground. GIR was at Zim's right side, Dib at his left, and Minimoose just about perched on his left side. GIR clung to his leg as he turned to hit the button behind him. With a sigh, one of his PAK's mechanical legs came out and reached back, pressing the button for him. And then they were gone.

It would all be over soon.


	17. Theatrics

They stood before a large door at the end of a darkened grand hallway. Dib couldn't see the end of the hall. It just receded farther and farther, darker and darker. Zim checked his surroundings, fortunately finding no one else there with them, and then looked up at the tall doors in front of them. Dib turned back and looked at Zim, whose head was dipped down as his hand wrapped around the gun he was holding, a finger resting upon the trigger. He lifted his head back up and glanced at Dib, at his side. Dib was holding the gun he had just earlier used to shoot the soldier that nearly killed Zim. Those two were about all that they had left from the massive supply they had originally brought, on behalf of Zim's work.

Zim sort of flinched suddenly, and he turned to Minimoose and GIR. Looking down the hall, then back at the oblivious-looking Minimoose and unfocused GIR, he nearly whispered, "You two stay here. Don't follow us and don't go anywhere. Okay?"

From the look on his face, Dib could tell he was serious. It made sense, though. They were about to go and, at best, go ahead with a political assassination, and at absolute worst, get shot to death; Zim wanted to protect these two, so there was no reason to send them beyond these doors and into a potential gunfight. And with a somewhat squealing nod from GIR and a cute squeak from Minimoose, Zim subtly nodded. He stepped in front of the door, and Dib took a step, at his side.

Zim looked over his shoulder and quietly added, "And yell for help if you see any soldiers, okay?" Minimoose squeaked. Dib didn't think they could yell, but perhaps the message got across anyway, because Zim turned back and got ready to burst through the doors, into the bridge. The two exchanged one last look of nervous tenacity, having come this far, and sustaining such violence and conflict, about to complete the mission. And yet, so close to such danger. With the quick tap of a button by the door, it shot open.

The two burst onto the scene, guns up and at alert. And immediately, they noticed the room was seemingly devoid of any life. Bad sign. As they inched farther into the room, seeing past terminals and desperately searching for the Tallest, it was utterly silent. Not even the sound of machinery. Even their steps seemed to be quieter. Dib's tense, controlled breathing could be heard by the both of them. The door shut on its own behind them. Zim was about to turn and look at the noise. And suddenly, the two were grabbed from behind. Commotion, and fluttering and struggle echoed through the room. Zim's gun flew out of his hand, sliding with a scrape across the ground. Dib was bent over and his arms held behind him, gun still in hand. Zim loudly struggled, in vain, against the captors; Dib less loudly.

Zim was nearly growling, spitting and yelling as he was lifted back onto his feet by the several guards holding his arms and his torso and his head. His legs kicked back and missed the soldiers. Dib's gun was wrestled out of his hand and held by a guard. His arms were held together behind his back by only a single guard, with another at the ready, nearly flanking Dib.

Zim continued to struggle, but less fruitlessly with every passing second. Dib hadn't given in, but could clearly see how little resistance accomplished, and didn't waste his energy. Within thirty or forty seconds, the two, who had utterly embarrassed the Irken military, and had raided the most military prestigious ship in the whole universe, were brought to their knees— without morale and without a chance to resist. Zim couldn't help, as he wriggled in the guards' grasp, that he should've planned for this— should have expected another ambush. But he didn't. And now he would face the dire consequences. Fatal, most likely.

Dib turned to Zim, who returned to look as he struggled. The two both, despite their differing responses, had looks of complete panic and hopelessness upon their countenances.

And indeed, from out of their view, or perhaps having entered as they struggled, appeared the Tallest. The two approached. Red had a nauseatingly smug, repugnant smirk on his face as he looked down on the declawed Zim. The two walked side by side, with Red slightly ahead. His, as human Dib would confidently describe, shit-eating grin, failed to falter as he turned to face Dib. However, with a confident command, he had the guard holding Dib release him. It wasn't gentle, and he was nearly forced off of his feet, but he was indeed let go. The two guards stood at his sides; their very presence sending the message that, despite them physically releasing him, he was not leaving. Dib's gun was brandished in the left hand of the soldier at his right, finger on the trigger, grip tight.

A couple of meters away, Zim looked on as Red got down and leaned in close to Dib. His right hand went to Dib's chin, which forced his head to the side as Red studied him. Then, standing again, Red simply said, staring at Dib, "These are the Earthlings you told us about. Very interesting."

Red walked exactly perpendicular to the two captives, in Zim's general direction. A guard reached down and grabbed the gun that had been flung from Zim's hand, and he handed it to Red. Red took it by the grip and stood in front of Zim. He examined it in his hand, turning it around. "Did you build this yourself, Zim?" He spoke softly, nearly cryptically directly.

"Yeah. And you're holding it wrong," Zim spit.

"Oh, am I?" He stepped closer.

"The barrel's supposed to be between your eyes."

Red's blank expression relapsed back to a disgusting smirk. "Hm, rude." He turned and took a step away. Then, spinning around he transferred the energy into a kick directly into Zim's middle. While Zim doubled over and felt like spitting up blood, he wondered how long the Tallest could do something like that; kicking like that. Dib's eyes widened with shock and awe.

Purple stood back quite a bit, watching on with a barely visible smile as he watched Red. He didn't want to interfere; Red had told him how much he wanted to go ahead with the drama and the theatrics. Purple, to be fair, enjoyed it, too. Red was good at over-the-top theatrics.

Zim's head was ducked down as gasped for air, it all having been knocked out of him. Red sternly and with authority demanded, "Look at me."

Zim lifted his head up with effort, struggling, and failing, to maintain a composed expression. Red was, as Dib would also describe, pissed. Maintaining a tone of voice nearly exclusively reserved for completely furious parents trying to sound calm, he implored, "Care to tell me what you were planning to do here? With these guns? With this Earth creature?"

"Human," Zim corrected.

Red didn't take any of that. With Zim's gun, he shot at the floor, right between Zim's feet. Zim nearly jumped. "What were you planning to do?" He was more demanding than yelling.

"Shoot you. And your _smeetheart_ over there."

Red laughed in a way that, despite the nearly collected composure, sounded viscerally angry. "Being smart with me, despite how uncharacteristic of you it is, isn't going to get you out of this one, Zim."

"Out of what?"

"Out of the simple fact," Red got down in front of Zim and held up his head with his free hand, his fingers resting below Zim's chin, forcing his gaze to meet Red's, "that you failed." His countenance was marked by the return of the smile. "You tried to kill us, and we're still alive. But soon, you won't be." He laughed, grimly. "You fail—"

Zim kicked and uppercut Red with his foot. And with a swift motion, he fell out of the guards' grasp and sprung back up onto his feet as Red recoiled. He reached into his PAK and retrieved his last gun and he sprinted towards Dib, beginning to aim.


	18. 9:49

It was surprisingly easy to get the gun out of the guard's hand and into Dib's, and with neither of the guards around him even holding him in place, they were quickly able to group up and get a reasonable distance between them and the guards. Zim shot back at the guards while he ran, unfortunately not hitting any. Dib saw Purple up ahead, standing alone and unprotected. Zim noticed that too, and turned slightly to the left towards him. Whether he would just kill him or use him as a shield, he'd figure that out when he got there.

Purple had a nervous look on his face, probably realizing the amount of danger he was in. He took a couple of tentative steps backward, looking to his side for something to protect himself with. Zim didn't focus on the specific words Red was saying, but he was shouting and ordering the soldiers around. Zim spotted a worker sitting at a terminal not too far away from where Purple was standing, also looking worried, but staying seated.

Zim was closing the gap between him and Purple fast. Dib was at his side, adrenaline coursing through his veins. Despite some hiccups, it seemed that they were about to, indeed, accomplish what they came here to do. And of no personal reasons, Purple would be first. Zim raised his gun and began to aim at Purple. Red was rushing closer, approaching the navigators' controls. A soldier's laser came amazingly close to hitting Zim's leg as he ran. Dib stumbled a bit as Zim's first shot at Purple missed.

And then Purple winked. Not at Zim, at Red behind him. And suddenly realizing something else was going on, he turned to look back at Red. He was leaning over a chair at the controls to flick a switch on the terminal, smiling. And suddenly, there was noise above him. He began to turn his head to look when something touched him. He jerked his arm, and suddenly he was being lifted off of the ground. Dib stood at the side, watching with dangerous, morbid curiosity and fascination. Grabbing Zim was a robotic arm, one that would have been used in any ordinary factory line aboard the Massive. Here it was, engineered longer, transplanted into the wall up above them. Zim couldn't aim his gun down at Purple. He was, again, no longer even a threat to the Tallest.

As Dib watched, recklessly ignoring what else might be happening, a guard grabbed him from behind and again ripped his gun out of his hand. He had no idea what was going on, but it seemed bad. Unnecessarily complicated, but bad. Was there any real need for a robot arm other than for the drama? Couldn't the guards grabbing them have accomplished the same thing? Given Red's laugh a few meters away, it probably was just theatrics, yet again. Dib was really starting to understand why Zim didn't like these two.

Purple and Red were standing next to each other now, looking up at Zim struggling. Zim dropped his gun as he wrestled against the arm. It collided with the ground with a clunk and slid a foot or so. Red sniggered, with Purple joining in.

"Well, you almost got him, Zim!" Red shouted up at Zim, who was about four meters off of the ground.

Purple put his hand on Red's shoulder, looking at him, before looking back up at Zim, "Yeah, you wanna try again? I'm right here!"

"Just pick your gun back up and try again!"

"Oh, oh, listen to this." Purple said to Red, lightly hitting his shoulder, "What's it like being tall for once?" Red laughed loudly.

"You know, you could be the Tallest with that height, Zim. Just come over here and we'll let you." Zim groaned as he tried to pull an arm out of the arm's grip. He continued to fail. Dib stared at the Tallest with disdain. This was just cruel. Zim, well, he really didn't deserve this.

"We'll get your PAK re-encoded for you, okay?" Purple chortled. Then, for almost a minute, amongst silent guards and a quietly struggling Zim, they simply laughed. They laughed as if this was one of the funniest things they had ever heard, and they needed a moment to calm down and collect themselves. Pleasant, perhaps even fun, without context. With it? It was disgusting to Dib.

"Oh, Purple, you are hilarious. Don't ever stop being funny," Red complimented. He was reacting so strongly not just for the drama, or because of the genuine fun he was having with Purple, but also because of the fact that the mortal threat he'd been facing was done with, essentially. His nervousness, his worries that he and Purple might be shot, their bodies left to rot; it was gone now. The relief that that brought was enough to stir up a confidence and happiness in Red that made it hard to stop being so excited— he felt the energy throughout his body, making it feel hard to stand still.

"You too, handsome." Purple, clearly, felt similarly. "Love you," he nearly whispered.

Quietly back, "Love you, too. But now's not really the time. In a bit, though…" It looked like he raised a single eyebrow. Then, the two turned back towards the arm, Purple clearing his throat. "I thought you'd try something, even after the guards had grabbed you. So I got this installed. Just for you, Zim."

"It's stupid," Zim uttered.

"It's a perfect fit then!" Red smirked, "It goes well with your PAK, actually." There was a glare of light, reflecting off of his eyes. Zim was suddenly much more nervous.

"Oh," Red continued, "are you feeling nervous now? Worried about what we might do?" Dib watched on with growing dread.

"What should we do with a traitor and an attempted assassinator?" Purple insincerely asked.

"Exactly! Look at Purple!" Red pulled Purple close. "You almost shot him! To death!" Red leaned his head against Purple's. "I can't even imagine someone despicable enough to shoot someone like him."

"What did I do to deserve that, Zim?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Purple pulled away from Red and took a couple of steps towards the terminal. Red looked to him and, with a sudden solemnness and gravity, "Do it." Purple flicked a switch.

Suddenly, the arm began to pull at Zim. Pulling him from his own PAK with the help of a smaller arm. Indeed, his PAK was being removed, forcefully, by a giant robotic arm. Red and Purple and Dib and all of the guards and navigators watched on as it began to separate from him. Then, Purple spoke, "Is it, uh, supposed to—"

And without so much as a second of hesitation, the arms separated, and with them came Zim and his PAK. Zim was hurled to the ground with great force with a thud, and he rolled across the metal floor into the other wall with a thunk, right by the guards. And on the other side of the room, Zim's PAK tumbled and bounced across the floor. It landed right in front of Dib, who, again, wasn't being held by a single soldier. He ripped his eyes from Zim once he felt the device land against his toes. His eyes widened and he hurriedly reached down and picked it up as the guards surrounded Zim's confused body. Dib pulled the PAK towards him, wrapping his arms around it as a guard approached. He stepped back, putting distance between him and the guard which held Dib's gun. Then, Red began approaching, and the guard stepped aside.

Dib watched Zim be pulled to his feet, looking back, in front of him, as Red came closer and closer, looming over Dib. He held the PAK close; he couldn't let the Tallest have it. And from what he'd remembered, he had only ten minutes to get this back to Zim before he died. Everything had become so much more dangerous, so much more fatal, so quickly.

9:49.


	19. Bargain

"You know, you haven't given me your name yet. Care to tell me?" Red asked, slowly walking towards Dib, with purpose, leaning down as if that made him more approachable. He was being backed up down the platform that stuck out over the massive pit inside of the ring of controls.

"D—Dib," Dib stuttered. He pulled the PAK closer. Not too close— it would attach if he wasn't careful— but close. There were only ten minutes until it had to be attached to Zim again. It had already been more than fifteen seconds since the PAK had been removed. He kept glancing to Zim, being pulled up from the ground, and then back to Red, who towered over Dib as he dramatically strutted towards him.

"Dib." He repeated slowly, committing it to memory. "You know about Irkens' PAKs, right?"

"Yes, I do." Zim seemed to be coming back into full lucidness after all the sudden movement and pain. He was being held by at least four guards. Lifted off of the ground, even. Dib couldn't quite tell from where he was standing. It seemed like Zim was pretty scared. Dib couldn't exactly blame him; he was, too.

"And so you know that Irkens without their PAKs will die, right?" Red said 'die' with a forceful emphasis, and held his hand up in the air slightly, almost as if he was trying to give a monologue on Yorick. It would be too dramatic, too on the nose, too extra, for even a literal actor to speak and move like Red was. Yet, it had its intended effect; Dib was terrified.

Dib gulped. "Yes."

Red sort of chuckled then. Whether he was simply in awe at the cartoonishly villainous way he was acting or he was actually enjoying the terrible amount of suffering he was causing, Dib couldn't tell. In the distance, Purple started commanding the guards to do something— again, Dib couldn't quite tell what. "Alright then, Dib. We're giving you a choice."

Zim was brought over to the platform Dib was on, set between the two ends of the circular border of terminals that surrounded the central platform. He was dropped to his knees and held in place by unfazed soldiers. It was still perfectly in Dib's view; perhaps on purpose. It had been more than thirty seconds, at least. Red was purposely silent for a moment as he saw Dib and Zim lock eyes. Purple said something more, eating a donut, and suddenly the window behind them had a timer overlaid on it, still showing access to the view of space outside, but also showing the ticking down time Dib had. And upon its appearance, there was a faint buzzing sound, and Dib felt he could see some sort of electrode or wire on or in Zim's arm. Zim squirmed in the guards' grasp and groaned in pain, but didn't seem willing or able to do much more.

And Dib looked back at the timer, at Zim's lifeclock. 8:59. And within that very second, Zim was starting to struggle. He seemed to be in physical pain, or something. It was as if he was being put under, even. He looked to be fighting to stay conscious, and was having difficulty staying sitting up. From Dib's last run-in with Zim losing his PAK, it didn;t seem like this. This was almost certainly something the Tallest were doing, somehow. And Dib found it intensely difficult to watch him struggle like that. Zim seemed to be in pain, and he engaged in a morbid fight.

"Zim's life is ticking closer to its end. His lifeclock's just there." He pointed at the timer behind Dib. "Every second that passes by, he loses mental capacity, and it gets harder for him to try and come up with a dumb escape plan. Closer to death. With. Every. Second." He spoke in time with the clock. It sent a shiver down Dib's spine, with just the... morbid indecency, insensitivity, distastefulness. Thoughts of Zim's plans of assassination crept up in his mind. He would deal with that moral dilemma after he was out of this situation, though. "So here's your choice, Dib."

Approaching Dib, at Red's flanks, while Dib had been distracted with the theatrics, some of the guards had snuck up, and they were aiming their weapons at Dib's head, his chest, his abdomen. He could even feel the cold, emotionless gaze of one of the soldiers, eying his vital organs, and where best to shoot, to which he shivered. Now, _all _eyes were on him; even Zim's drooping ones.

"You hail from Earth." Red gestured behind him, where Dib could see the entire blue marble through the front of the ship. It really was beautiful, and Dib wished he could stare at it more, but: 8:30. "And as I understand it, you wanted to help Zim with his stupid plan solely to save Earth. Correct?"

"That's… that was why I first agreed, yes." Dib was careful with his words. Indeed, his reasoning had changed some since the beginning. Zim wasn't really as terrible as Dib had initially thought, and he didn't want him dead anymore. Far from it. Zim was a friend. One in desperate need of help right now.

"Well, all we want is Zim. So…" he turned to Purple, suppressing snickers, "we see no conflict here. And neither should you. Give us the PAK, let Zim go on, and then we have no reason to bother your planet. We'll leave as quickly as we came, and we'll put you right back where you came from. Simple as that. Just hand over the PAK so we can destroy it." The last sentence was spoken with a demanding authority, and he held his hand out and down for Dib to place the PAK into, close enough to Dib that he conceivably could if he just reached out.

Zim stared at Dib, with whatever the Tallest were doing to him seemingly getting worse with every second lost from his lifeclock. It felt wrong not to look at Zim, to maybe give comfort with glances of reassurance while he fought against his own approaching death, but it felt impossible to look at him going through what he was. And now with this choice resting in Dib's hands. He couldn't bring himself to do it without his eyes beginning to water.

7:49. "Or. You can hold onto that PAK, hope it doesn't bind to you, and wait for the clock behind you to tick down to zero. Because this _is _a time-sensitive issue. And in holding that PAK against yourself, you're putting yourself in as much danger as Zim is in right now." Red reached over towards the PAK, to grab it, and Dib squeezed it even closer to him. As he did, he also squeezed his eyes shut in an act of desperation, his eyes unwittingly watering more and more now.

"Why do you want Zim to die so badly? Why've you been doing all of this, just to kill him? You were gonna destroy a whole planet just to get rid of him!" Dib raised his voice.

Red grimaced, his antennae flattening against his head. He stood up straight and began to rant, louder and louder as he spoke, "Zim has done nothing but put the Irken Empire and its leadership— leaderships— in constant danger! He's killed two other Tallest. He's nearly killed Purple and me multiple times, and he's ruined operation after operation, caused disaster after disaster, and has been a constant annoyance that never ceases to ruin anything and everything in his reach. He can't even be exiled correctly! Even while lightyears away he manages to cause disasters uncountable. We see that the only solution is to have him _eliminated._ Now and for good. And Dib—" Red smiled with a sinister and furious grin, "we will not let you stand in the way of that. This is more important than you, and it's more important than your pathetic planet. So don't make any stupid decisions."

"He's killed your leaders that wanted to colonize whole planets? Nearly killed the two most insufferable people I've ever met? And he's not _just_ an annoyance. Zim has bothered me before— often, even. But he's also eluded me at every opportunity. He's gotten _so _close to taking over Earth, if it hadn't been for me. And he's more sensitive and smart and understanding than he lets on! You don't see any of that! All you want are snacks and to see planets explode! You two are the annoyances! You're the defectives!" Dib screamed, defining himself in opposition to the Tallest, allying closely with Zim in his attack. His appreciation for him and his disgust at what he had heard Zim say about being defective before rising quickly. He shouted nearly at the top of his lungs, tears dripping down his face now. His life, as well as Zim's, were threatened, and the Tallest were simply tyrannical and cruel, and even if some of the things they said could be true, Zim was better, against Dib's expectations, than that. Everyone's antennae flattened against their head. Dib saw Zim give a weak smile out of the corner of his eye.

Purple was fuming, rushing towards Dib. "You only think that because you're just a smeet! And you think that y—"

"Purple, honey, hold on a minute," Red turned around and stopped Purple, tenderly putting a hand on his chest. 6:03.

Red smiled deviously, turning back around, "Dib. You're lucky that we haven't had our guards kill you for that alone. Be thankful that our deal still holds true. Hand over the PAK, and we'll ignore every word you said, and we'll still let Earth stay intact. That's, well, that's a bargain plus some."

"Bargain? Bargain?! Letting Zim die and then going home as a coward and a backstabber? That's a bargain? A bargain would be doing something li—" The PAK attached to Dib's chest. Dib desperately tried to pull it away and failed.

"Hmph. There goes diplomacy, kid. Sorry. Can't say I didn't try, though. Guards!"

Time slowed down to a halt. Dib closed his eyes and focused. And despite everything that had happened and was happening, he managed to focus on the PAK and himself. And when he opened his eyes, the PAK's legs had sprung out from the parasite attached to him, and they suspended Dib over a barrage of gunfire. Immediately, he commanded them with a graceless determination, hastily stumbling over towards Zim, who perhaps looked optimistic. It would be easier to tell if he wasn't about to fall backwards and go unconscious.

Glancing over his shoulder he took one last look at Earth, outside, having been previously spared the Tallest's wrath, and he looked at the timer. 5:27. He looked back. Indeed, there was some sort of electrode or sensor hastily stuck on Zim's left arm. "I'm gonna yank this thing off of you, okay?" Dib hurriedly asked, looking Zim in the eyes, as he reached for it.

Zim sort of half-nodded before he let his head fall back, unable, because of either his impending death or something the Tallest had done, to keep it up any longer. Dib grabbed the wire and pulled away from Zim as hard as he could. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the guards, as well as the Tallest, quickly approaching. He grabbed Zim into his arms, struggling, and lept out, using the PAK's legs to scamper away. He rushed to the nearest exit, without guards in the way, which happened to be to the side— a different entrance than the one they had entered through. He scrambled through the large open door and into a different, less grand, hallway. Now he had to keep from being killed by the Tallest or the guards while also finding a way to remove Zim's PAK and attach it back to him. All in about five minutes. Dib hurried away from the general clamor behind him as Zim hazily looked down the hallway.

The soldiers made quick chase, and were approaching fast— they weren't using their PAK legs, but they were much more adept at using their biological legs than Dib was at using his new mechanical ones. The Tallest stuck back in the bridge, and stared down the hallway as the soldiers, and Zim, got farther and farther. Red wrapped his arm around Purple, pulling him closer. "How did that kid even manage that? He wasn't good, but he managed to use Zim's PAK to avoid being _shot._" Red muttered. "And he escaped with Zim."

"Sweetheart, don't worry too much. They have less than five minutes. They'll both just die trying to hide or run away." Purple turned Red's head with his hand. Purple stared into Red's anxious eyes. "Same outcome." They held themselves there for a silent moment.

Then, "I sure hope you're right…" Red leaned in, cocking his head at an angle, meeting Purple in the middle. They held themselves like that for a moment, the drama, the action, the tension, and the passion all heightened in the confusingly dangerous situation they had found themselves in, using each other to find solace and an escape. Red's eyes were tenderly kept closed, with Purple's savoring every second with a half-closed, somnambulatory gaze. Red pulled away with a warm, humid sigh. Purple reciprocated Red's desirous stare as they held each other close.

"...Um, m—my Ta—" Red and Purple quickly turned and faced the hesitant and awkward navigator trying to get their attention, putting their back to the hallway. The poor worker flinched and physically jumped backward with something approaching an 'eep'.

"What do you want?" Red asked, annoyed, wiping his mouth clear of the evidence of his and Purple's kiss with the back of his right hand. That wasn't the first time they'd kissed, not even close. But to Purple, it felt like the best, and to Red, it felt like the last.

"What do you recommend? Regarding, the, uh, Earthling? And Zim?"

"Oh, of course. Well, have them followed constantly. They've only got, what, five, four minutes left. Just make sure they don't have time for Zim to get his PAK back. Make sure the soldiers don't lose sight of them. Got it?"

"Crystal clear."

"And you already know that if you say a single word about us you'll be _obliterated,_ right?"

The worker nodded quickly. "I was told about it the first day you two became the Tallest."

"Great. Now go take care of those orders. The soldiers can't lose sight of Zim or the Earthling."

A soldier rushed in from the hallway Zim and Dib had escaped down. He shouted, trying to remain professional and collected, "My Tallest, the soldiers have lost sight of Zim and the Earthling!"

Red slowly turned around. "They _what!?_"


	20. Untracked

Dib wasn't very good at using these legs. Zim had managed to use them with a sort of commanding grace. Dib felt like he was liable to slip and fall flat at any given moment. The fact that the floor seemed to be as flat and as sleek as ice didn't help.

Neither of the two had access to that timer anymore; they had no idea how close they were to dying. Both of them, of course, as Dib had put himself in danger, too. It certainly felt like they were ticking closer to their death as Dib, struggling to hold Zim in any secure fashion, dashed madly down the seemingly endless hallway, debating whether to try and take a corner whenever one appeared. He had repeatedly elected not to, afraid he would trip or slip and would fall.

But as the chase continued, with the guards somehow not gaining ground, and Dib not having outpaced them, it seemed more and more important to try something, _anything,_ to escape. They needed Zim's PAK to be returned, and there was no way to do that in their current conditions.

Then, as if Dib was no longer in control of his own actions, he blanked. Afterward, he practically couldn't remember what had happened. But Zim watched as he skittered around a corner, taking a hard right. Then almost immediately, a hard left. He was slowly escaping the guards chasing them, against all odds. Then, behind a fourth or fifth corner, Dib pulled the mechanical legs in and leaped into a large chute, with its opening in the wall at the side. He fell down the chute, unknown to the both of them, then used the PAK's legs to dig into the thin walls of the chute and come to a stop, hovering above the darkness out of sight of the guards, who could be heard continuing to rush by, down the hallway.

When the guards had all seemed to have left, Dib used the legs to pull himself out of the chute and back into the hallway. If Dib had to guess, there might've been maybe four minutes left for the two of them. Hurriedly, Dib set Zim down against the wall. Dib pulled the legs back in and crouched down, with his back to Zim. "Get this thing off of me," Dib muttered.

Zim took Dib's gun from his hand and used the butt of it to bash off the PAK, which, perhaps surprisingly, worked. The PAK was loudly knocked off and onto the floor, where Zim picked it up and, with some difficulty, reached around and put back where it belonged. Still in pain, still feeling the exhaustion of nearly dying, again, he wasn't exactly in pristine condition again, neither was Dib, but the two had to move regardless.

Everything had gone wrong at the end. The Tallest, far from being dead, they were probably coordinating an even stronger force to attack Dib and Zim, who were on the run now, it seemed. And that was without mentioning GIR and Minimoose, who were by themselves, right outside the bridge, with the Tallest.

They could turn right around and go back into the bridge the way they left, hopefully killing the Tallest for real this time, with no more surprises. They could circle around and get back in the hallway where Minimoose and GIR were, where they'd originally entered. They could go a really roundabout way and travel around the Massive to lose the Tallest and come back untracked. Who knows, they could ev—

"Untracked?" Zim asked.

"Well, if we lost them, we could have an advantage. You know, element of surprise," Dib explained.

"But we can't." Zim was contemplating something, seemingly deep in thought.

"What?"

"We can't get lost, and we can't be untracked." Zim looked up, staring directly into the face of a camera, pointed right at them. He began to stand up. "They're always one step ahead. Because of these cameras."

In the bridge, Red screamed into a communication device. "You passed them! I can't believe your incompetence! Yes, shoot!"

Dib looked where Zim was looking. Zim ushered him up. "Let's get out of here." As he said that, the soldiers that had been chasing them returned from the direction they had passed them, and were heading right for the two. "Go!"

Zim turned quickly and tossed Dib his gun back. He nearly failed to catch it and stumbled for a second before running with Zim, behind him. Shots were already being fired, and with their backs to the source, it seemed disturbingly possible that one of them would strike one of them square in the back.

Running straight down the hallway, as was the case before, wouldn't help the two escape from the guards; quite the opposite, really, as the guards were almost certainly faster and, again, were already shooting at them. Every second they spent running was leading them closer to their death. Again. Well, already, Zim had had enough of his life ticking down, and, as they were approaching a four-way intersection in the hallway, Zim reached into his PAK. It was bizarre that only moments ago, this had been attached to Dib's chest. Zim would have thought about it more, but instead he retrieved one of the two EMPs that remained of their stockpile, and he threw it behind them. It had the intended effect, stopping the soldiers behind it as the two could take a right and disappear out of sight.

That wouldn't last forever, though. So, doing much the same as Dib had done earlier, they wound around several corners. And eventually, Zim took the opportunity, while quite a bit ahead of the soldiers, to run into a room, of which the door was open. Dib, of course, followed.

Zim had the door shut, and the door disabled, giving only him, on the inside, control. Dib, gun up, searched the room quickly, looking for Irkens. But, the room was empty. It was also rather cold as compared to the other rooms. Taking a glance up would explain why.

Practically all of the walls of the rather small, roughly cylindrical-shaped room was taken up by, as Dib perceived them, computer servers. And they went up for quite a while, with the ceiling maybe being ten, fifteen meters up. Other than these servers, the room was completely empty, giving a clear view up the room, which was being cooled, presumably for the computers' sake. Both Dib and Zim were interested in the room they had found themselves in. But the situation didn't allow for gawking at anything, really, so Zim pulled his eyes away and began to think out loud, although Dib continued to examine everything.

"The Tallest always know exactly where we are because of the cameras everywhere, so it'll be difficult to try and go back to the bridge without—"

"Oh, speaking of which," Dib pointed up, "looks like there's a few up there." Indeed, there were five or six cameras spread throughout the height of the room.

Zim wordlessly pulled his gun out and shot each camera out one by one. Halfway through, he began to think out loud again, continuing to aim and shoot. "So unless we disable more cameras, the Tallest will see us and reposition troops to stop us. And then…" Zim paused after shooting out the final camera, all the way near the ceiling of the room.

"Yeah?"

"The Tallest…"

"Yeah?" Dib was more forceful now. "What about them?"

"...What did the Tallest say to each other while they had me in the robot arm?"

"Uh, I don't know; they said a lot of things."

"No, when they pulled each other closer."

"Um… something something 'handsome'? 'Love you'? Maybe?"

Zim quietly hummed. "Exactly."

"Exactly what? What are you talking about?"

"They've never made their… strange feelings very hidden."

"Okay…" Dib had a pretty good idea of what feelings Zim was talking about. Dib agreed; it was rather obvious.

"We can use that to our advantage."

"You nee—"

"It's an even smarter plan! How did neither of us think of it before? Perhaps because we hadn't seen exactly how they were together. But regardless, we have it now, and, well, you must agree that—"

"Zim. What are you talking about?" Dib paused between each word, and he said it more like a statement than a question.

"We don't need to kill the Tallest. Shouldn't kill them, even."

"Woah woah woah, I thought you had gotten past all of this and agreed to kill them." Dib looked into Zim's eyes concerned. "That's the only way we can make sure they don't, like, come back and destroy the Earth for real. Remember?"

"But if we kill the Tallest, then perhaps the next Tallest will harbor the same feelings." Zim quickly put his gun back into his PAK as he excitedly waved his hands as he explained. "And I won't have to kill the Tallest." Zim stared at Dib. "All we have to do is use their feelings for each other as leverage."

"Leverage?"

"We don't kill them; we just threaten them both. Maybe wound them to prove that the both of us are serious. Then, use Red's attachment to Purple to force him to stop what he's trying to do."

"Threaten and beat them up? Then what?"

"Threaten to kill Purple, in front of Red. Maybe nearly fatally wound him."

"Like, gun to his head?"

"Exactly." Everything that had happened aboard the Massive was pretty macabre.

"How would that be better than just killing them?"

"Red considers Purple too important to let him die. He probably considers Purple surviving more important than killing me."

"That doesn't stop them from killing us after we leave."

"But if we _nearly_ kill them, then the Tallest'll know that we _could_ kill them if they try to. Then they won't try to kill us, cause they'll know that we could kill them if they tried."

Dib considered it, deep in thought for a minute. Zim was clearly excited by his new plan, the stroke of genius he had suddenly had, as it allowed him to get out of this alive without killing the Tallest. Sure, it still involved hurting them severely, and everything he'd done was still probably firmly against the empire, but it meant that he wasn't going to double his Tallest kill count. "You really think that could work?"

"Yes."

"And you think that's better than just killing them?"

"Yes." He seemed sincere. If it was simply the years of Irken propaganda speaking on behalf of the Tallest, it did a very good job of hiding that.

"Alright then, Zim. I guess I trust you on it. You know more about all of this than me anyway. But that doesn't solve the whole camera thing."

Zim sighed. "You're right." He rummaged around the inside of his PAK, retrieving the last EMP he had. "This is the only one we have left. These could put out cameras extremely efficiently, but this won't do enough alone." He passively examined it.

"Well, we'd want to put out the cameras _before_ they saw us, right? Otherwise, it'd be pointless."

"Exactly. I don't know how to do that with what we have left."

Dib was aimlessly looking around the room again. "Do you think something in here could help?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what else do you have left with you?"

"This one gun and this one EMP." He was starting to sound despondent.

"What about the map?" One of the servers had some sort of drawer sticking out of it.

"Oh, well, I have that, too."

"Is there, like, some path we could take without cameras?" Another had a monitor displaying a bright white light.

"I… don't know."

"Could you figure that out on your map?" All of the servers at about eye level had monitors that were pitch black and disabled.

"Maybe." He sat down, setting his gun and the EMP beside him as he reached into his PAK again and got the map.

A monitor near the very top seemed to not be flush with the curved wall like all of the others. "How long do you think we have before guards start assembling outside the door?"

"Not long, probably. Which is why we need to figure something out quickly."

"Well, have you found anything?" Hey, one of the terminals had a monitor that was displaying green text. It seemed to be the only one that was like that. It was maybe three meters off of the ground. Dib couldn't tell what it was. "Hey, one of these monitors says something."

"It's a monitor. Usually they do that."

"No, this is the only one I can see."

"What does it say?"

"It's too high up, I can't read it."

Zim finally looked up from his map, looking to Dib. Dib pointed up at the terminal. "What, do you want me to read it?"

"I mean, you have the mechanical legs in—"

Zim immediately went from sitting to being hoisted in the air as the PAK's legs shot out and put Zim almost at eye level with the titular monitor. Dib stared at the legs for a moment. It was really, really weird to think that minutes ago they had been spewing out his own chest, and now they were attached to Zim. Dib shivered. Some part of him was glad that he probably wouldn't be interacting with _this much_ alien tech after all of this.

Zim pulled himself over to it and began to silently the Irken text scrolling along the screen. After a moment his countenance became more contemplative. "Hmm."

"What? What does it say?" Dib loudly spoke, up, towards Zim.

"It says that thirty-six cameras are disconnected."

"Thirty-six?"

"...Hold on." Zim quickly started typing into a small keyboard that pulled out of the server. Dib watched on with anticipation.

It had been a bit now. Not quite a minute, but certainly a while, in complete silence, except for the sounds of typing. "...Well?"

"There are thousands of connections to this terminal. All cameras around the front of the Massive." Zim seemed practically delighted. "This server handles the cameras for this whole area, except for the bridge itself. Everything between here and there."

"Really?"

Zim lowered himself a little bit with the legs. "How did you see the one terminal that handles cameras?"

"I…" Dib felt like he'd just had a deus ex machina type moment.

"Doesn't matter. I'll handle this." Zim grabbed the last EMP again and, after activating it, placed it on the keyboard that pulled out from the server itself. He then lowered himself back onto the ground and the legs retreated back into his PAK as he stepped backward.

And suddenly, the server, as well as a lot of servers near it, went completely black, probably being completely destroyed. Then, as it seemed successful, several around the room began seemingly randomly sputtering out, too. I happened in waves, with these individual terminals shutting off. Zim and Dib watched on with confusion and a vague sense of dread. It eventually slowed down, and then it stopped. After this cascade of shutdowns, more than a third of all of the servers seemed to break.

"What just happened?" The lights in the room suddenly went out, with the only light coming from the servers that were still functioning, although almost all of the remaining ones seemed to display red errors on their monitors.

The EMP shut off a lot of servers, just about all of them Zim had no idea what they did. And many of the servers probably extensively relied on each other, so when a few shut off, it sent a wave through the connected servers that suddenly couldn't function. It could have untold effects on the ship as a whole. Zim tried not to think about that. "I killed a lot of servers."

Red emergency lights flickered on. "Is that good?"

"Probably not." A rumble resonated through the ground and the walls, as if coming from a far off explosion. "No. Not at all. We need to go, now."


	21. Colors

The halls didn't look any better. Dark— black— except for the occasional red, uncharacteristically warmly pulsating light. There were indiscernible sounds echoing from throughout, deep rumbles and the sounds of grinding gears and machinery, probably as a result of what Zim had just done. It was also eerily silent. No guards could be seen from where the two were, nor could any be heard. Only occasional ambient noise and the distant panic. It could be a trap. But, there wasn't exactly a way to tell from what they could see.

The path back to the bridge wasn't clear from their memory or from looks alone. The action and the panic that had driven their decisions didn't leave them with a convenient way to trace their steps. So, Zim had to make heavy use of his map. He was nervous that guards would use that opportunity when he had his face in the map to attack. But, nothing at all. Instead, it was just a peaceful and relatively simple trip back to the doorway they had exited through from the bridge.

It was closed, but there was nothing at all preventing Zim from having it opened again. That certainly made this all feel more like a trick, seeing that it wouldn't have been hard for the Tallest to do something to make it more difficult to enter. But regardless, as Dib stood watch, Zim typed into the terminal, muscle memory starting to develop with the very similar, practically identical commands he'd had to type to open these doors manually.

Zim looked over to Dib. With that one look, Dib could easily discern what Zim was essentially asking. Dib nodded. Indeed, he was ready. With that, Zim tapped one last button on the terminal and quickly slid backward, next to Dib, with his gun up and ready. The door quickly slammed open, revealing the also darkened bridge. The only sources of light were yet more red emergency lights and the white ambient light from space, which made the whole area feel like back on Earth, when the moon was the only source of light in a dark bedroom.

The two, as confidently as they could, entered the bridge. They looked around. The navigators were still at their posts, but they might as well have been civilians or even scenery. Then, spotting them in the darkest corner of the room, the Tallest were stood next to each other. The moment they were spotted, Dib and Zim began to approach. And as soon as they began to do that, the guards sprung into action, having thinned out and garrisoned all around the room. Dib quickly took aim at the guards converging on him in the front, and Zim turned around after hearing guards behind him try to surprise him.

Zim quickly took aim and fired at the soldiers before they had assembled into any sort of formation, or before they had gotten any sort of cover. Dib hurriedly dropped down and rapid-fire shot into the small group of green gathering together. The Tallest passionately directed the soldiers, both of their voices overlapping and mixing into the general clamor in the room as they slowly walked to the door at the front of the bridge, which was only a couple of meters away.

In the darkened room, it was hard to tell how the combat was going. The Tallest could only really tell when the red emergency lights reached the peak of their brightness. And then they would steadily drop in brightness as they continued to pulsate. Red took note that, if they survived this, they would make sure that these lights got changed.

Then, it became apparent, after maybe the twentieth pulse of the emergency lights, that the guards were not doing all that well. Really, they oughtn't to have been surprised; these two had managed to get this far already, and the soldiers that the Tallest had deployed hadn't stopped them yet. And as this dawned on them, they quickly got nervous. Red continued to watch, hastily considering what to do, and Purple leaned over to the door and started to try and open it. A stray yellow laser from one of the guards struck the door and Purple leaped backward with a yelp. Purple tried to yank Red away from the door, and for them to find some other way to either win the fight or escape. Red was pulled but continued to shout directions throughout the room, practically unfazed, at least, physically.

But still, Dib and Zim continued to fight against the guards. Soon, it got the point that Dib handled the remaining guards as Zim quickly went back and got the door they had entered through, closed and disabled. The goal was to make sure that no more reinforcements could arrive from outside. And after that, he rushed past Dib and the few guards that remained to the door the Tallest had just been beside. Red and Purple pulled back, looking around for something to attack Zim with.

Nearly immediately after Zim had completely disabled that main door, Red decided, with no other exit in sight, other than breaking straight through the walls or the window in the front, that he would have to take brave, perhaps stupid, procedures if he and Purple were to survive. So, he lunged forward, managing to get Zim before he could turn and see Red approach. Red wrestled the gun out of Zim's hand quickly, and then attempted to get him on the ground. But as it were, Red's momentum slowed, and Zim put up an immense fight.

The final guard, reaching over to try and use one of the passive, terrified navigators as a shield, was shot right at the base of their neck, and a second shot struck them point-blank in the forehead, and they collapsed onto the ground. Dib turned his attention to Zim, struggling against Red. And, remembering their new plan, he briskly paced over to Purple. Purple looked up and spotted Dib quickly approaching him, and his attention shifted from studying the fight Red was in and debating if he should intervene to trying to find a way to get away from the Earthling. He stumbled backward, and Dib raised his gun and pointed it at Purple's head.

Neither Zim nor Dib were exactly excited to enact this crucial step of their plan, but they reminded themselves that the Tallest would never accept letting Zim leave, alive. And that only if they believed that their life rested on, against their intuitions, letting Zim live, would they agree to such a thing. And again, the alternative that had been the main plan up until twenty minutes ago had been simply killing them. So, the fight between Red and Zim, and the new, easier fight between Purple and Dib continued.

Zim was nearly thrown against the wall, but Dib spotted Zim get close to being overwhelmed, and an over the shoulder shot at Red's leg served to give Zim, well, a leg up. Purple was thrown down to his knees after a brief tussle that had resulted in Dib's glasses being swiped off and sliding across the floor. Red struggled to stay focused on the fight that he was currently involved in due both in part to the injury he'd just sustained, as well as Purple's attack. It created a good opportunity for Zim to sweep Red's legs, including the bleeding one. He easily tumbled to the ground, slipping on the small pink puddle of his own accidental creation.

Purple found himself disturbed by the other's beating as well, and was quickly bashed by the butt of Dib's gun. With no guards at either of the Tallest's disposal, with no guns of their own, and without the much-appreciated help of the other, they were quickly injured and subdued despite their height advantage.

A swift kick to Red's chest, similar to what Red had done to Zim earlier, brought out a coughing fit as the right side of his face rested in the warm pool of rose-colored blood. A sure strike straight into Purple's face came with a brutal cracking impact and nearly pushed him over onto his back. Dib grimace after that. But he reminded himself of Earth's fate if this wasn't carried through, and of the things these two had done in their lives. And with a solemn, nearly frowning countenance, he continued the assault.

Red was sat back up, on his knees, being held in place with a forceful grasp by Zim, the muzzle of his gun resting against the back of Red's head. Red's eyes struggling to stay open in the pain and blood loss, he watched as Purple was on his front, his face smashed against the ground, facing toward him, by Dib's foot, pressed against the back of Purple's neck. And Dib's gun was pointed down, right at Purple's head. And for a long, palpable silence, Red's desperate glare stared into Purple's terrified eyes, and vice versa.

"So? Are you gonna kill us, then?" Red spat.

"Not if you give us what we want," Zim responded.

"Oh, rich, Zim. You get a native buddy who can hold a gun like you and you suddenly think that—"

"Red! Shut up!" Purple interjected.

"Well? What is it that you want?" Red asked.

"All of us leave and go back to Earth, and you don't attempt to kill me again," Zim answered.

"If only we were awarded the same thing. But you've nearly killed us a—"

"Shut up!" Purple pleaded.

"It's the same outcome either way, Zim. If you back to Earth, you'll just end up killing me anyway," Red stated.

"What about him?" Zim gestured to Purple, for Dib to see. Dib lowered the gun closer to Purple's head.

"I don't think this kid's got enough confidence to pull that off," Red admitted.

"Red!" Purple cried out.

Dib put his finger on the trigger. "This Earthling's a nervous wreck. And he's just putting on a façade. He couldn't pull the trigger if his life depended on it."

"He's already killed all of our guards! Red, please, don't do this!"

"But you know that Zim's just gonna kill us when we least expect it. And it's probably not gonna even be on purpose."

"You don't know that! Red," Dib tightened his grip on his gun, "he's offering to leave and let us live."

"And why would we trust_ Zim?_"

"Because that's all we _can_ do!" Dib pushed down on Purple with his foot harder. "Please, don't kill me."

"I don't believe you'll do it, Zim."

"Red!"

"Okay," Zim said. He gestured to Dib, using his free hand to mimic what he wanted Dib to do. He got the message after a moment.

The trigger was pulled, and the sudden sound of the gun having been fired rang throughout the bridge. The green ray came down towards Purple's head, and it struck the ground next to him, practically grazing him. Purple screamed in terror; something which Red also did, for Purple.

"Purple!" Red screamed, as a sudden thought, as a way to see if he was alright, as desperate metaphorical reach out to help. Purple screamed again, still mortally terrified. Seeing that he wasn't immediately dead, "Don't shoot him!"

"Then agree to the deal," Zim directed.

"Yes! Yes! You and your group can leave! Don't shoot him!"

"You'd better not go back on your word."

"I won't! You can go back to Earth and we'll leave you alone. I'll have you escorted back to your ship, even!"

"And you'll leave us alone even after we leave?"

"I— I—"

"Well?" Zim pressed. Dib pointed the gun back at Purple's head, and not to the side.

"Don't kill him! I'll leave you alone!"

"Alright." Zim let go and pulled back, causing Red to nearly topple over. Dib got off of Purple and stepped back.

Red struggled to get onto his feet, after everything that had happened. He hastily limped over to Purple, who was trying to get up himself. Red held out his hand and helped pull Purple up. The two's eyes were watery, with tears moments from forming. And the two instantly pulled each other into an excruciatingly tight embrace, their bruised arms pressing against each other.

After many long, silent seconds, they pulled back some, and they passionately and forcefully kissed. Every little bit of contact had them physically feel that the other was okay, was alive. And that affirmation that the other was okay was desperately needed, and the solace of the other was the only thing their minds could focus on. Not their pain, not the deal they had just made, not anything that had happened that day. Just the other's bloody, exhausted face. They continuously pushed their faces, their lips, even harder together, as if it were possible to make them any more together.

After practically an eternity of breathless desperation, with the two keeping their eyes open as another way to just take in the other after both of their near-death experiences, they eventually pulled away. Their panting faces still stayed mere centimeters away from each other, the other's hot, humid breath on their own face. They were both alive. And they both needed each other's close presence. Somehow, the Tallest had both lost to Zim, and yet had still survived.


	22. Reverse

"Ahem."

Red continued to stare into Purple's eyes, holding the other close.

Zim pointed his gun at Red. Louder this time, "Ahem."

Red pulled away from Purple and turned to face Zim promptly. "Of course. Of course. The two you had brought are just outside the door." He started to turn back.

"Are there guards behind the door?" Zim asked.

"Uh," Red thought for a quick, somewhat panicked moment, "probably." His leg wound, as well as the various other injuries he sustained, started to hurt now that things were calming down.

"Yes?"

"Yes." Red leaned over his shoulder and gestured to the watching navigators to come thither.

"I want us to be escorted back to the shipyard, as you had said."

"Oh. Well, there aren't any guards left alive in here, thanks to you." Red gestured around to the bridge, wincing. The only other living organisms being the navigators, worried and vaguely cowering, despite being completely uninvolved. One of which rushed to the injured Tallest.

"I'd prefer to not get shot by a brigade of soldiers rushing in after I open that door."

"They're the only people able to escort you," Red argued, his voice raising slightly.

"Zim, open the door and we'll order them to stand down," Purple stated, his voice audibly wavering in a 'just finished crying' sort of way, despite not having visibly shed any tears. Red glanced over at Purple with a, yet still anxious, but content gaze.

Dib stood at the side, close to the Tallest as Zim approached the terminal he'd disabled not but two minutes ago. He was glad that he'd had the foresight to simply disable it, a less effective fix, rather than completely destroy the controls. That would've made leaving a more cumbersome task.

As Zim typed, Red got some bandages, or at least a temporary substitute for them, from the navigator he'd called to him. He stopped leaning on purple and uneasily got down on one knee and tightly began to wrap the bandages around his wound. Luckily, it was only something of a graze, although one that bled quite a bit. He'd need to get it sorted out soon. Red needed Zim to leave quickly.

But, as it were, it was relatively easy to get the door open again. The moment he slammed his finger down on the final key, he backed up quickly. Rightfully so, as there was a massive group of guards on the other side. A plucky engineer had been trying to get it open, and was nearly trampled as the divisions funneled in, quickly. They pulled their guns up quickly and took aim.

"Stop! Put down your guns!" Red shouted with authority as he stood up again. Although, the vague shakiness in his voice did betray his message a tiny bit.

The soldiers slowed as they saw Dib and Zim completely unarmed, and the Tallest standing by them, with Red giving his order. Purple somewhat loudly added, "Don't shoot," his voice nearly devoid of authority. The guards stopped dead in their tracks, lowering their guns. They looked up to the Tallest for any other orders.

Red sighed. "Would some of you escort _Zim_ and his partners back to the shipyard?"

From somewhere in the middle of the group, a guard spoke up, "Why?"

Another, in the front, asked, "Are you okay, my Tallest?"

"Purple and I will— we're alright," Red grunted as he tried to shift weight off of his disfigured leg. How the hell had he _not_ really noticed it a minute ago? "And Zim has got what he wants. He's going to leave without any further trouble." Zim seemed to puff his chest and take in the glances from the guards.

From near the back of the horde, "But my Tallest, he's killed so many Irkens!"

"All the more reason for him to leave as soon as possible," Red cringed. Purple was clearly in pain too, but he wasn't in need of any medical attention like Red was.

"But my Tallest, he's—"

"Escort Zim to the shipyard! We don't need to talk about what he's done." Red took in a breath. "As for the rest of you, not accompanying Zim, begin helping clean up this mess."

Zim turned to Red, "And my ship?"

Red looked down at Zim, "What about your ship?"

"It's damaged, and it won't fly without repairs."

"What do you want _me_ to do about that?"

"I want it repaired."

That would take far too long. "You can take one of the ships in the shipyard instead."

"No, I— any ship?"

"Any ship in the shipyard." Zim needed to get out of here _now._

"Alright then. Agreed."

"Great. Now go. Leave. Get your friends and go; the guard will escort you."

"Thank you, my Tallest," Zim said before he ushered Dib to come along as they began to walk out. That final courtesy, most likely given as a result of the constant propaganda Zim had been subject to, was in stark contrast to all the rest of the treatment the Tallest had had directed their way, and it confused them in a rather unpleasant, facetious-feeling way.

The guards began to separate off and move throughout the room, in a less dense fashion. Three split off to accompany Zim and Dib as they reassembled with GIR and Minimoose and as they were led to the shipyard in the rear of the Massive.

Standing out of sight from the inside of the bridge, inadvertently hiding behind the threshold, GIR was excited to see Zim again, and ran up to him, hugging his pinkened legs. Minimoose squeaked and floated over to Zim and Dib. He floated over Zim's shoulder, giving his innocent grin to Dib, behind Zim. And after the brief reunion, with the potential for talking about what each group had experienced, they began to let the guards lead them back.

Dib asked about Minimoose; he finally had a pause in the action and tension to ask about what Minimoose had done back when they were nearly surrounded, and about why he was brought in the first place. Zim began to explain about his crafting of Minimoose, and his untapped, destructive power. Dib, and probably the stone-faced and disgruntled guards, listened in.

In the midst of the busy room, with navigators administering instructions and serving to organize and focus the potential of the guards into more efficiently cleaning up the bodies, the blood, the burns on the walls, and the general havoc, the Tallest held each other close for a moment. They were surrounded on all sides with a flurry of movement and activity.

"Are you okay, babe?" Red whispered tenderly.

"Me?" Purple spoke unsteadily, "You got shot."

"I'll be fine. You nearly got killed."

"But I didn't." Purple faltered.

"It sounds like you think you did."

Purple pulled Red in for a tight hug, one that exacerbated the bruises and gashes that they had sustained, yet still felt necessarily intimate. It was silent for a moment— just being savored by the two. Then, "Do you think you made the right decision?"

"What, trusting Zim?"

"Yeah."

"I have no idea. Maybe he wouldn't have had the guts to kill me. But I couldn't let them kill you."

Purple saw, over Red's shoulder, the guards shoot glances at the Tallest. Despite the Tallest's relationship always being something of an open secret, they'd done a pathetic job in keeping it hidden that day. And that open secret was simply going to become open. Not to mention, the bodies of countless guards were riddled throughout the Massive, with Zim having ended many lives. And the Tallest just let him go. Relatively unharmed and completely unpunished. The guards didn't look pleased with either fact.

"Do you think everything's going to be alright after this?" Purple wondered.

Red pulled back from the hug, staring into Purple's eyes. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"What do we do if things go bad?"

"Who knows." Red abruptly leaned in and put his lips against Purple's. Purple hadn't expected it, but quickly reciprocated it. Surrounded by corpses being dragged away, and malcontent guards staring at them, the Tallest once again tried to keep from falling apart by means of the other. Red noticed the faint taste of blood upon Purple's face. And to Red, it felt like their best, and to Purple, it felt like perhaps their last.

They seperated and Red saw the look of anxiety still present upon Purple's face. Red quickly and quietly added, "Don't worry about it right now. Tomorrow we can stress about the repercussions of all of this. Right now, we shouldn't." And with a bit of a smirk, nearly drunken in its formation, "And maybe tonight, in our personal quarters, we can try and alleviate some of that stress."

Purple took on the same dopey grin. "Maybe."

Red pulled back. "But first, I really need to get my leg fixed up."

"Oh, yeah, of course! Here, lean on me, sweetheart, I'll help you out."

Zim and the others were being led by the three armed guards back to a teleporter room, where it was then just straight shot back to the shipyard. As they walked, the group could see the mess that they had made being cleaned up; bodies being dragged away, pools of blood being wiped away, and walls and mechanisms being repaired.

Dib tried to not focus on that. He wanted to try his luck and learn more about Irkens and aliens in general, if he could.

"Well then, how many other empires are there?" Dib asked.

"Some," the guard in front stated.

"Any estimate?"

"Several."

"Well, how many can you name?"

"At least a few."

"Could you—"

Another guard spoke with their teeth nearly gritted, "You and Zim killed hundreds of people today. You nearly killed the Tallest. You've embarrassed and injured the Empire. And that's not even considering everything Zim's done in the past. So stop asking dumb questions."

Zim, with what leverage he had now, could have done something about that guard, but after looking over at Dib, and seeing that he peacefully complied and kept quiet, Zim didn't respond. As such, the rest of the walk was silent. It was only filled with the various thoughts of the two as they tried to comprehend and contemplate everything that they had done that day. There would be a lot to think about.


	23. Damaged Ship

It wasn't long until the group arrived at a teleporter room. This one, untouched by Zim and Dib, was still fully staffed and in perfect condition. Zim certainly got several wayward glances by these staff as he entered with the guards. After all, he was infamous even before he got the whole Earth marked for destruction and boarded the Massive only to kill dozens of guards and nearly kill the Tallest. Regardless, it only took a few instructions from the guards for the workers to set up the teleportation. The group, including the guards, stood on the platform, and then they were sent away.

They arrived at the threshold of the shipyard, at the door on the far end of where Zim had been; where the reinforcements had been entering before. They walked farther into the room, stepping over several bodies— some of which were being dragged off by makeshift cleanup crews. Indeed, it was obvious that the group's plan had come with a large body count.

Mechanics and engineers worked to fix the collateral damage the area had taken by stray laser fire and whatever other weaponry of war had been used. And in the distance, Zim could see the ship he'd taken up here— the ship he'd originally taken to Earth upon starting his mission. And there, his ship was nearly completely destroyed; worse than he remembered it being, even.

They walked closer to it, and stopped beside it, having walked nearly the full length of the large room. Beside the ruined ship was some sort of an engineer, who was consulting a computer system. He saw the group and its escorts arrive and looked up. Then, the guards and the engineer had a quick aside, a few steps away, in Irken. Zim could make out a few quiet words, although Dib was completely in the dark.

The Irkens stepped back to where they had been. The guard that had been barely tolerating Dib's earlier questions spoke up, "Your ship's damaged?"

"Yes," Zim stated, "and the Tallest said that I could choose a ship to replace it."

"I heard." The guard glared at Zim, "Well, he's told me you can choose any of these five." The guard gestured back at the engineer before vaguely pointing between the five ships closest to the group.

Zim turned to look at the ships and stepped back to try and see more of them at once. There were quite a few options to choose from. There was another Voot Cruiser, like the one Zim had flown up here, although not broken. Two Spittle Runners grouped together at the Voot Cruiser's right. And then, two much larger ships at their sides: a Ripper and a Ring Cutter.

Now, there was hardly anything that Zim wanted more than to claim ownership and to use one of these larger, much more powerful ships. But, it came with the problems of being noticed and somewhat reduced mobility. Not to mention, he'd have to modify his base significantly if it was to be stored somewhere.

But, something deep inside Zim couldn't turn down the increased power. Besides, it wouldn't be hard to keep it from being discovered; the inhabitants of Earth could easily be fooled. So, he turned back to the engineer and pointed to the Ripper— the second from the right of the selection of five he'd been offered. "I think this one will do."

Dib spoke up, "Zim, that's huge."

"Of course!"

The engineer talked with a surprisingly soft-spoken voice, "Then it's yours." The engineer pushed off from the counter or terminal he was leaning on and walked over to the ship. He had the door opened as Zim stood aside. "You know how to pilot one of these?"

"Of course." Zim said, "After all, I'm a wonderful invader."

"Yeah, sure." The engineer responded with a tone that sounded neither condescending nor agreeing, somehow. "Anyway, it should easily be able to fit all of you and take you back to Earth. And if you know how to use it, then go right ahead. If you need me to show—" He looked over to the guards who were glaring at him in disapproval. "Well, you've got it handled."

Dib, GIR, and Minimoose came over towards Zim as he began to enter into the ship. Indeed, the group piled into the much roomier ship, and Zim looked over at the engineer and the guards. Zim shouted, "Thanks for the help!" The Ripper slowly began to take off from the ground.

Over by where the engineer had originally been sitting, the guards grumbled. One mumbled to the others, "I'd like to shoot at them; make their ship crash land back to Earth." The others muttered in agreement.

And shortly, the ship was pulling out from the shipyard, and the engineer watched as it moved forward a bit before quickly accelerating away, leaving the Massive behind. Toward Earth, Zim's new ship rapidly approached, speeding closer. Dib thought it was an amazing sight to see the Earth from so high up and so far away. To see the Earth almost in its entirety. To not be able to see the land through the clouds. And to see it all approach as the ship descended back towards Zim's base.

As they came close to ground level, Dib found that he couldn't see the Massive— seemingly at all. And looking at the city and at the suburbs, there was no sign of panic or upheaval. It seemed that somehow, everything was normal down on the surface. And the group was able to make landfall without being so much as noticed.

The new ship was indeed a bit too big for what Zim had designed. Luckily, it mostly fit, and what was showing was covered with a tarp or two. Zim would make adjustments to everything, and he would have a place for it.

The group filed out and into the base. GIR and Minimoose ran and floated off, respectively, and they were probably going to go do some sort of nonsense. Zim walked over towards the couch. Quietly, over his shoulder, he said to Dib, "I suppose you're going to leave now." Dib stopped and turned towards Zim. "But, um, thanks, Dib." Zim cleared his throat. "I would probably be dead if it hadn't been for your assistance." Zim began to take another step, walking away.

Dib quickly stepped forward and put his hand on Zim's shoulder, stopping the both of them. "Thanks for helping to keep Earth from being destroyed." Zim continued to look ahead, his gaze turned exactly opposite Dib. "I know you don't really care about Earth, but I really appreciate it, Zim."

Zim half-chuckled, dipping his head down. "I don't have anywhere else to go now anyway."

The two kept silent and completely still for a short moment. "Zim?" Zim took a deep breath. Dib grabbed Zim's shoulder and turned him around and immediately brought him into a tight hug.

Zim was going through quite a bit. His thoughts were muddled and it seemed like an unorganized and inconceivable mix of everything, in one terrible unordered thought; a siege on his brain, really. That alone had nearly put him over the edge. And now, Dib, who had fought tooth and nail with him and had emotionally defended his existence, when no other being ever would, to the Tallest— Zim certainly felt tears welling up in his eyes. He reciprocated the hug, and weakly pulled Dib in tighter, which made Dib hold Zim tighter, too.

The two were silent for what felt like a long time. Then, Zim, in a rare turn of events for him, whispered, "I guess we'll resume hostilities tomorrow." He gave a quiet chuckle as he pulled away from the hug. Dib let go, looking Zim in the eyes.

"Do you still wanna conquer Earth?"

"I…" Zim looked away from Dib's passively supportive gaze, "don't know."

"Well, I'll give you time to figure that out, okay?" Dib thinly smiled, in a tired sort of way, "And if you need someone to talk to about… _everything,_" Dib stood up straight, "I'm just down the street. Okay?"

Zim slowly, seemingly hesitantly, almost, nodded. "Okay."

Dib subtly nodded, too. "Okay." Dib adjusted his glasses. "Well, I'm gonna go back home and, uh, make sure my dad doesn't think I died or something. But, uh, be sure to come by if you need to talk."

"Yeah." Zim exhaled. "Thanks."

Dib nodded silently, and then he took his leave, closing the door behind him carefully, leaving Zim in the room, alone.


	24. Reconciliation

**A/N available on Ao3 at Brickmaster_Guy**

* * *

It had been a few days since Zim and Dib's mission on the Massive. So much had happened during their departure from Earth, and it was taking quite a while to recoup after it all. Zim continued to keep from going to school, which was really only noticed by Dib. The communication lines Zim had set up with Dib's phone as they prepared for their attack were particularly useful; not for any more planning or anything, but simply for talking.

One of the first things Dib had done after returning from the mission was finding and speaking with his father. What more proof of aliens could there be than their largest ship turning up on— But Dib should've expected, after the whole Florpus thing, that his father wouldn't be influenced at all.

Indeed, Membrane claimed he saw some sort of aurora, of fantastic quality. As he explained to the progressively more disappointed Dib, he saw naturally occurring lights in the sky, most likely caused by a geomagnetic storm. When Dib pushed on his claims further, in vain, which Dib knew, Dr. Membrane simply replied that, indeed, if one was to stretch their imagination, it could have resembled some sort of futuristic, massive, alien spacecraft. But there was no value in doing so, and it was just a waste of one's time. Dib relented, knowing that further arguing would accomplish nothing.

Zim's manic and cocky attitude took a dive again. Dib was worried that he might end up in the same state as before— moping incessantly and belittling himself at every turn. But, Zim turned to talking to Dib. He tried to respond to Zim's messages in between classes, making sure to try and provide a strange sort of moral support. And after school, he returned to Zim's base. His house. Dib, with GIR and Minimoose's presence, hung out with Zim as he unsteadily worked through everything mentally.

Years and years of Irken propaganda, dating back an indeterminate number of generations, influenced Zim in ways untold. His language, his goals, his personality, his whole _life_ had been sculpted for a purpose— one that Zim, as a result, was enthusiastic about fulfilling. But Zim, as he had always tried to ignore, was never able to. And it had all culminated in the Massive, with a gun pointed at a nearly crying Purple, with the knowledge that any baseless hopes of good relations with the Tallest were just that: hopes. And it would take a while, years, perhaps, to even begin to erase all of that's influence on him. To stop the worship of the Empire, of the Tallest, and of sacrifices. To erase the decades of ideology embedded within that had held him back while simultaneously classifying him as defective.

And yet still, the things that had happened on the Massive, as well as in Zim's past, were not good in different ways. Zim would have never really paid attention to the people killed as a result of his actions, or to the violence he dealt out. But, increasingly, as he slowly came to understand the new, no, the _real_ normal, he realized how horrible some of the actions were. Dib was clearly affected by it all, and seemed to feel indeterminately guilty and regretful. Zim didn't quite feel those things, but through much extrapolating and thinking, he was beginning to understand, and he was starting to see how much unfettered violence was morally wrong.

But the small patchwork of those around him helped him through trying to reorient 'normal'— not with the violence and killing, though; that was for him to atone for himself. But, serving to help with everything, Dib was a near-constant presence of comfort that aided him in trying to deal with his own self-doubt as well as confirming for Zim what 'normal' was, as he tried to rework its meaning in his head. GIR and Minimoose were simple, unnaturally effective means to take his mind off of it all, and GIR's occasional concern for Zim was strangely comforting in and of itself. Gaz played video games with Zim occasionally, as both a good way to take his mind off of things and an example of what normal was. Zim even spoke with Keef a few times. Zim was still troubled by him and the whole 'friendship' thing, but Dib assured him he'd figure it out eventually if he kept trying.

Back on the Massive, the Tallest and their subservients were yet still handling the job of cleaning up. Despite the threat of assassination, the Tallest had survived through it all, as had the Empire.

Earth, as well as the whole system around it, for good measure, was essentially disconnected from everything else. The region, and any transmissions or signals or anything from there, were blacklisted and desperately ignored. The Empire wouldn't touch that area. Perhaps ever. Indeed, the Tallest had briefly discussed plans to _physically_ put some sort of barrier between them and the Empire— encasing it in some sort of sphere to keep it blocked from everybody else. The Tallest planned to talk about it in depth more later.

The Tallest had their own troubles closer to home. They were still recovering from their injuries, with Red's being particularly nasty. And there was still quite a bit of trauma to deal with; Purple was nearly shot in the head, at the whim of a seemingly uncaring assailant. Red focused on it often, and took it as a warning about Zim. Purple, more affected by it— after all, it happened to _him—_ was beginning to see it as more of a foreboding sort of thing. And with the things the teary-eyed Earthling had shouted in defense of Zim… Purple was planning on discussing certain things about the Empire with Red.

The Empire was a bit unstable after everything. Any semblance of secrecy in Red and Purple's relationship was gone, and it was now commonly known, in open circles, that they were together. That, compared with Zim's path of destruction through the Massive— well, it didn't sit well with Irkens at large. There was rising sentiment that Red and Purple were too weak and not good enough, which was paired with rumors that the Tallest had artificially increased their height, and weren't suited for their positions in the slightest. The Tallest tried to fall back on certain tried-and-true methods; they tried to get the populace brought together in hatred of Zim, and they tried to turn the blame on the soldiers as being unfit for the job. It wasn't clear if it was working, though. The Empire always needed an enemy, but it seemed that the next one might turn out to be its own leaders.

Back on Earth, Zim was thinking. Again, he thought about the issues that had found his weak spots and drilled into them to no end. Zim wasn't an invader. His life's purpose, invalidated. And then again, was that a bad thing? The Empire was, well, it wasn't good. Even that alone was difficult to think about. And even still, he would never be on good terms with the Empire, let alone any present or future Tallest. And while he felt the constant urge to fight back against this thinking, and the knowledge that serving the Empire was good, he couldn't reconcile it with the progressively harder to ignore thinking about what good the Irken Empire actually did.

And that was ignoring the issues Zim had to deal with, now that he accepted his exile. Zim was a permanent resident of Earth, if things kept going the way they were. He would need to figure out permanent plans for living and for what to do. And there was the culture of Earth that he'd need to understand. And just the thought of trying to get what was right in his head was—

"Do you wanna piece of this chocolate bar?" Dib asked, looking over his shoulder, sitting on the ground with GIR, holding a candy bar in his hand.

Zim looked up, having been ripped from his train of thought. Zim smiled. "Of course, Zim would like a piece of the bar!"

Dib broke off a chunk and handed it to Zim who happily began to eat the sweet candy.

"Get your chocolate outta the way," Gaz grumbled, furiously mashing buttons on her controller, trying to get a good look at the TV in front of her.

"...Do you wanna piece?" Dib asked Gaz.

"Yeah." Dib broke off another chunk and handed it to Gaz, who chewed on it while continuing to play, "You know, this game's got multiplayer, Zim."

"Oh, you should try it, Zim! I'm not good at this game, but you might be able to beat her." Dib reached over and grabbed a second controller and placed it in Zim's lap.

Zim looked down at the controller, then back up at Dib, holding GIR up in the air with one hand like a cat. Then, looking to his right, Gaz focused on her game as Minimoose floated in front of the TV. "Tell your moose to get out of the way."

"Minimoose! Move! We're going to play video games now!" Zim swatted. Minimoose squeaked and floated over to Dib, where they bounced off of the back of Dib's head. Zim picked up his controller. "I'm going to win," he smirked, hunching over, ready.

"You need to plug it in first," Gaz explained.

"Oh."


End file.
